Photo of the Day: Oily Rainbow

My car has an oil leak that is pretty bad. I am planning on getting it fixed pretty soon (it has just been a matter of making time to actually go to the mechanic), but I have driven my car for a number of months with the leak and no major issues. It does feel somewhat comical to pull up at a stop and look to the side to see smoke wafting up around the car, but that's just from the oil hitting the exhaust pipe and burning up.

My thought about this picture is not the oil but the rainbow. I came out of church on a gloomy, rainy day to see that the oil from my car, mingled with water running down hill, had created this mini-rainbow. And the thought that struck me today when I saw this photo is that God provided for rainbows even in situations like this, where the oil leaking signifies a need for a somewhat expensive repair job. The rainbow has, since it's Divine instantiation, been a symbol of hope, a symbol of the peace that comes after the storm. It is precisely because it is a Divinely created symbol that it symbolizes such hope. God is the one who brings us through the storms of life. He is the One who gave Noah the plans for the ark, He is the One who kept the Ark safe, and He is the one who brought it in the end to dry ground, where He gave the rainbow symbol. In the same way it is God who carries us through the difficulties we all must face in life, and the rainbow in the oil leak is just another reminder of this concept. The rainbow in my situation is hope that some day soon, thanks to God's provision, I will get that fixed and I will no longer have a car that smokes.