rain.

So the other day my companion and I were walking out of our dinner appointment and the sky was grey [like it always is right now] but it was a relatively light grey.
As we left I checked our cell phone.
We had missed a phone call.
So I called it back.
Among other things, the missionary on the other line informed me that there was a rainbow in the sky and that I needed to look at it right now.
I was walking up a rather muddy hill and it was rather hard to walk and talk and try and look up and not fall, all at the same time.
I decided it was best to not try and do all of them.
So when I got to the top of the hill where our car was parked I looked up into the sky expecting to see a rainbow, but instead, I was met by a giant raindrop in my face.
After the steep, muddy climb, it was definitely not the happiness I was expecting.
And by the time we got to the car, it was pouring.
And there was definitely still no rainbow.

Sometimes this is how life is. And, sometimes to our dismay, we don't always end up getting what we're expecting. The road may have been long, and we may have worked hard, but sometimes we're just met with more hardships.
Now, I definitely realize that this is a rather dramatic parallel, but my point is, that the sun always comes out.

As we drove to where the phone call had come from, the rain subsided.
And by the time we got to our destination, the rain had completely stopped.
We were only about two miles away from where we had been, but it was a completely different atmosphere.
And as we got out of the car, we saw that although the sky was still black where we had come from,
there indeed was a rainbow.

Sometimes, I guess you just have to step back, turn around, and

change your perspective.

Look at where you're standing from someone elses point of view.

A little while later, we got back in the car and drove back to where we had been.
Now that we had seen the rainbow, the black sky we were driving towards didn't seem so menacing.
We knew that there was good and not just darkness, and we kept our eyes on that the whole time.
And as the sky around us got darker and darker, the rainbow got brighter and brighter, and we could see more of it. Until eventually, we could see the whole thing. Beginning to end and every color in between.
We hit the rain eventually,
but it didn't matter.
Because we were filled with the memory of the brightest rainbow either of us had ever seen.
And eventually, the sky cleared.

And such is life.
It gets hard, but it always gets happy again.

But if you're remembering the story, you'll be saying to yourself,
"But you hit rain again. Even after you saw the rainbow."
To which I will reply,
"Yes. We did. But the changing of our perspective and the rememberance of the happy makes the rain that will inevitably come again, worth it."