My dear readers…below is one of the posts I made while my “technical difficulties” was unbeknownst to me. I decided I would reprint it as I do not believe anyone actually saw it in print…except myself!
And as with all things, the crisis is over…but there was a time, just a few weeks ago when “this” happened, read on please.
The other day I was driving down the street and passed by one of the many canals that crisscross our little city.
You know, the canal that butts right up against the parkway right after the 3 sided intersection?
Yep! That one.
And then…out of the corner of my eye–I saw it.
Or more accurately, I didn’t see “it”!
Let me explain.
I was happily running errands in my steel-blue convertible, top down and singing at the top of my lungs….“Don’t Stop Believing”, when I passed the 3 sided intersection that made my happy song slowly fade and become silent in my throat.
I had glanced to the right side for just a moment, but it was long enough to see the ugliness of a once beautiful canal, normally full of water and water lilies and lined with sailboats and pontoon boats on either bank.
It wasn’t beautiful anymore!
There were no boats.
The water level was so low, the banks of the canal looked like the cracked, parched land of the Sahara Desert.
It saddened me.
This is my city, located on the Gulf of Mexico and it is known as a “Waterfront Wonderland”, with over 400 miles of navigable waterways. Actually, Cape Coral has more miles of canals than any other city in the world.
Yes, I said the world, which includes Amsterdam and Venice, Italy.
Plus, because we are a Cape, we have water on three sides AND we are located on a narrow peninsula of the United States known as Florida!
But we were in a drought.
There were forest fires….ok, everglade fires and yes, a forest of Florida vegetation, pine trees and palm trees suffering from a lack of rain and careless campers.
Are you a bit confused?
OK, how about a little history lesson:
The Everglades (or Pa-hay-okee) is a natural region of tropical wetlands in the southern portion of of Florida, comprising the southern half of a large drainage basin. The system begins near Orlando with the Kissimmee River, which discharges into Lake Okeechobee. Water leaving the lake in the wet season forms a slow-moving river 60 miles wide and over 100 miles long, flowing southward across a limestone shelf to Florida Bay at the southern end of the state. The Everglades experience a wide range of weather patterns, from frequent flooding in the wet season to drought in the dry season.
OK, we knew we had been advised to cut back on watering our lawns and gardens….but I didn’t realize it was quite so SERIOUS!
It wasn’t until I actually saw the canals appear to be drying up that I became concerned.
Our monsoon season had not started and in all the time we have lived in the Cape…I had not seen results of absolutely no rain.
Until now.
However, as with all things…the old saying of “this too shall pass”.…came true shortly after my sighting of the shape of the canals.
In other words….it started raining.
And raining and raining.
We are talking about a lot of rain and in some areas of our state, flooding.
This, I was familiar with, as we have our months of rain, usually in late afternoons on an almost daily basis.
But this rain was a continual rain, morning, noon and night.
The concern turned from droughts to flooding, as the canals have filled to almost overflowing…some docks are covered with water.
And then…. there it was.
I saw a beautiful rainbow peeping through the cloudy sky and I wanted to start singing again….”Don’t Stop Believing”…..
Why?
Because the rainbow was a promise or covenant given to us by God.
We all know the real significance of the rainbow.
This came after the famous flood when the promise was made to Noah and all the earth.
The Bible tells us about this beautiful arc or bow in the skies in Genesis 9:12,13, 14 …
God said, “This is the sign of the covenant which I am making between Me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all successive generations; I set My bow (rainbow) in the cloud, and it shall be for a sign of a covenant between Me and the earth. “It shall come about, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow will be seen in the cloud,…
In this covenant, God promised unconditionally that He would never send another flood to destroy all life on the earth.
Three times God reiterated His promise to Noah “to never again” completely destroy the earth by such a flood and He sealed it with a sign. (Genesis 9)
The beautiful rainbow!
God did not promise we will never experience storms, floods or droughts, but He has promised He will be with us during them.
That is a comfort to me.
I hope you have a relaxing and restful Sunday.
I may just put on my yellow rain boots and splash in the puddles of water with the youngster next door…. or I may just curl up with a good book!
Please comment, I'd love to hear from you.