Promises

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about promises. Promises made. Promises kept. Promises broken. Promises yet to be fulfilled. 

When I was a little girl, I used to make my father pinky-promise me whenever I wanted him to really seal his word. Not with a signature nor with any witnesses. For some reason the gesture of interlocking the smallest of our fingers together was to me more binding than any other sign that could be offered. 

So, I remember one sunny morning when my dad was reading the newspaper and on one of its pages an advertisement announced the opening of a new amusement park in Maryland. Without any provocation from either my sister or me, he told us with rue and nostalgia in his voice that he’d like to take us to this new park. You see, my father had not taken a day off of work in years. It had been years since we’d gone to an amusement park or done anything adventurous with him, and at that point, my sister and I were older and wouldn't necessarily jump at the suggestion of going to an amusement park. But for some reason, we wanted to go with him. So we jumped on him and made him pinky-promise that he’d take us. And so he did. He kept his promise. 

Not only did he keep his promise, but he got very sick riding the ferris wheel. Not just once but twice. Because we had asked him.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the promises we all make in our lifetimes. To family. To friends. To ourselves. To God. Bringing those promises to remembrance has caused me to pray—that God would help. Because it’s so easy to not keep our promises because it’s so easy to forget why we made them in the first place. Love. Isn’t love what compelled us to make those promises in the first place? To our spouse on our wedding day. To our kids when they were born. To our friends when they asked if we'd help them carry their burdens and pain. To God when He became more real to us that anything else we’d ever encountered in life. 

Double rainbow 

On the drive back from Indiana

The other day, I saw a rainbow on my drive back from Indiana. A double rainbow at that! It stretched from one side of the horizon to the other—a perfect semicircle. It was the brightest and most complete rainbow I had ever seen. I was reminded of God’s promises. I was reminded to press in to remember the promise that was made in the beginning. I was reminded of the One who kept his promise because love held him there. Because love held him there till the end. So I call on the only One who can keep me in that Promise, the only One who can help me to keep my promises. Because the more and more I know myself, the more and more I know that I can only rest my promises on His. Because? Because, because, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.