I’m sharing this story for the very first time since it happened nearly a year ago, 2022. It has been sacred to my heart. I’ve held it tight and treasured it, but testimonies are powerful and I feel lead to share this one now.
I will begin the story by first explaining my love for rainbows.
I’ve had a special love for rainbows for as far back as I can remember. Rainbows just naturally have an awe and wonder factor about them. I assume most people affiliate rainbows with God because of the promise He gave Noah after the flood. For that reason, they have a symbolic meaning. But before I even had a close relationship with God, or knew that story well, I felt like rainbows were a kiss from Him.
When I got a little older, seeing them became even more special. God showed me a rainbow the day we had my grandpa’s funeral. I was young, but the feelings of loss were real to me. It was my first taste of losing someone that I loved, and seeing that rainbow brought me comfort. I sensed that it was Him. Then, another one appeared on the day we lost my grandma. And AGAIN the day of my brothers good friend’s funeral.
I just really felt like God was revealing the reality to me that He was with me and knew I was hurting. His presence in my hurt and pain warmed my heart. He was showing me as a little girl that He loved me and wanted to comfort me. Rainbows were my reminder that He was with me.
Because of that pattern, I began seeing them as God’s comfort. I was beginning to tune in to His voice back then although I didn’t realize it. He was teaching me to look for Him.
Science can explain how a rainbow is formed, the perfect recipe can cause one to appear, but only God can have it appear precisely when we need it most.
He can use a rainbow. He can use a book. He can use a bird. He can use a sunrise. He can use a stranger. He can use your child or your spouse. He can use a movie. He can use ANYTHING to speak to you.
The question is how do you see or perceive these happenings? I personally do not believe in coincidences.
My divinely timed scriptures in His word, stories from His word , nature, rainbows, and so on, are not coincidences. They are ways to see and experience Him. They are His visible presence.
I passed this love and infatuation of rainbows on to my oldest daughter, Elysse. To her as a child, because of my experiences, rainbows were always God’s special gift. She LOVED them. Drawings, paintings, stickers, pictures, and even a stained glass rainbow that her grandmother gifted her. They became little symbols that covered her childhood.
Three years ago, Elysse started a small business of selling her hand made macrame rainbows. After a couple of years making them she mastered her art. They are absolutely gorgeous. The most beautiful thing about them is that each beautiful, symbolic, rainbow is prayed over and paired with a powerful promise from God. She prays and chooses the promise in which the Holy Spirit leads her. The beautiful rainbow is then the recipients reminder of the Word of God that is theirs to claim and speak over their lives. POWERFUL.
Of course, the most beautiful thing is not only how God has used her business in the last three years, but WHAT He has done inside of HER heart as she has navigated with Him. That is always how He works. He cares more about the condition of OUR hearts than He does our platforms. Her rainbows have reached nearly all states in the U.S. and even a handful of different countries. The impact on lives that God has touched has been astounding. Some of those lives that have been touched wrote Elysse personal letters. I’m assuming these beautiful testimonies given to the maker of these little rainbows had no idea that they were writing their stories to a young teenager. That thought makes my heart swell. Several of the stories were written by mothers who had lost a baby. They were raw testimony’s of the horrific pain in losing a child. But God…
These stories went on to speak of the hope birthed after their LOSS. God blessed them with the birth of another child in which is known as a RAINBOW BABY. Neither of us had ever even heard of that term. What an honor to be entrusted by these women to read and carry these priceless testimonies.
Only God.
The women who shared their stories with her wanted a rainbow for their rainbow babies as a reminder of what God did after their painful loss. Her rainbows represented and reminded them of hope that was birthed.
As time has passed since those stories were shared, I have crossed paths with so many women who have lost babies. I am deeply honored that any woman would share their story with me.
We are not “protected” from suffering or pain. But God’s presence can shift our focus. We can find safety and redemption when we trust Him with it. There is glory hidden there when we do. Set your gaze on what He is saying and speaking over you. He will bring healing to your broken heart. That is what this story is about. This is where He meets us. This is the sacred union. He comes so close that His presence heals our brokenness, and He takes all the pieces and puts them back together beautifully in a way we could have never imagined. This is what He longs for. He longs for relationship with us. He is truly our SAVIOR.
A year ago, 2022, we were nearing my oldest daughters, Elysse’s, sweet 16th birthday. If you know me at all or have been following me for some time, you know that my love language is giving gifts, large or small, and it usually HAS to be something sentimental. I LOVE making people feel special.
For her approaching birthday, Lyssy, sent me a little list of things she wanted for her birthday. Jokingly as the time drew closer to her special day, she added to the end of her short list… an orange kitten.
I laughed out loud when I saw this addition to her birthday wishes. She always makes me smile with her witty humor. She is a stinker. I loved how she snuck that one in there.
This child passionately loves cats.
I thought for a few seconds and said immediately, “Well THAT is NOT going to happen.”
So I jumped on the internet and searched for the PERFECT stuffed animal orange kitten. I was proud of my cleverness. That request was resolved, so I thought. I put the perfect stuffed orange kitten in my closet.
Her request started to weigh on me. Everything else she asked for was just stuff. A kitten would be a gift to remember forever, and that is always my goal when gift giving. So, I started entertaining the idea of rescuing an orange kitty. I was very well aware of the fact that it was the voice I should NOT be listening to, BUT…. It was her 16th birthday. And that would be a very special gift for a memorable birthday. It is literally one of her most favorite things in the world. I also rationalized that she wasn’t getting a new car, so this was the next best thing. Plus, what are the chances of finding and rescuing AN ORANGE kitty before her fast approaching birthday? It wouldn’t hurt to “look.”
Well, evidently it’s not that hard. Pretty quickly I stumbled upon an older couple in MAGNOLIA (my town) that had just found and posted about a tiny kitten they found at the husbands work shop. And of course she was completely irresistible. She was the cutest baby orange kitten I’ve ever seen. And so tiny!
The search was so easy I’m surprised they didn’t just deliver her to our front door. I reached out to them to get some additional information. She was itty bitty, but seemingly healthy and very happy. The couple was very kind and thrilled with my interest. It seemed to be the perfect match. How did my little thought turn into reality so quickly?
I knew I would have to to tell Elysse because we were a little over two weeks from her actual birthday and I wanted her to be 100% that she wanted to take on the responsibility.
My heart was bursting at the thought of blessing her with this baby. When I told her, she was over the moon excited and after thinking for about a SECOND she wanted to meet her.
We wasted no time going to visit her and it was love at first sight. I cannot explain the joy I felt when I saw the light and sheer happiness in her beautiful blue eyes. It was the kind of joy you want to bottle up and keep forever. I felt so blessed to be able to gift something so special to her on her 16th birthday. My heart was so full.
On the car ride to bring her to her new home, Lyssy named her Phoebe and all in the world felt very right. Lyssy was madly in love. She treated Phoebe like a newborn child. She coddled her and held her like a baby. The interaction and chemistry between them was so touching. For what seemed like the first time, I saw a very nurturing side to Lyssy. Watching them even brought tears to my eyes. It was so beautiful. Phoebe was such a divine gift.
We took her home on that Friday and on Saturday morning we set out to get her shots at a local mobile vet.
Phoebe was acting different that Saturday evening but we didn’t think that much about it. We thought maybe it was just the immunizations causing her to be a little off. After waking up Sunday morning, she began having full-blown seizures. After she had a couple I knew immediately that we needed to get her to the emergency vet.
Lyssy and I, extremely heavy hearted, rushed her there. It was so hard to hold her little body in our hands while all this was happening. We felt so helpless and fearful of the worst. That car ride was horrific. Fear of the worst consumed us.
On a sidenote, when Lyssy was eight or nine years old, I bought her a kitten from a lady, who we later found out, was running a kitten mill. The kitten we bought for her came home and started getting very sick. We had to take him back to the woman we purchased him from. That’s when I found out she had been selling a lot of sick kitties. The kitten almost died in our hands on our trip back to the lady. That was what I was deeply hoping would not happen. I didn’t want Lyssy to know that her kitten was dying. It was HEARTBREAKING. This made a wound in Lyssy’s heart.
Years later we had a beautiful Maine Coon kitten that we loved dearly. She was stolen from us from workers that worked on our house after it was flooded. They took her on their last day of work and we never saw them again. The owner of the business who was family to the workers denied taking her, so there was nothing we could do. Once again we were left with broken hearts, especially Lyssy’s. That hurt lingered for a very good while. We searched and tried to find her for months. I STILL to this day catch myself looking and hoping.
So this tragedy that was unfolding before us was also bringing to the surface past hurts.
When we got to the ER vet, they took Phoebe back and got her stable. It was going to be a while before she saw the doctor because the doctor was tied up in another emergency. We waited a few hours completely sick to our stomachs. In the meantime, just getting her stabilized already cost me a few hundred dollars. This was before she even saw the doctor.
My daughter. The look in her eyes. The silence while we waited. The nurse who kept checking on us that was genuinely kind but wasn’t offering us much hope. Her heart hurt with ours.
After hours of waiting, the doctor finally came to see us.
At home, my family was waiting on us to celebrate my son’s 20th birthday. Not being there was very hard on top of everything else.
The news the doctor gave us was not good as to be expected. She said that Phoebe needed a procedure done for her seizures that was going to cost nearly $2,000, but that even after the procedure there were no guarantees that Phoebe would survive. I felt like vomiting. The voice in my head kept whispering, “16th birthday present” over and over and over.
It felt like a living nightmare.
The doctor told us that I would need to decide whether to put Phoebe down or to proceed with the procedure. She kindly told us to take a few miutes to decide.
I had to go outside. The reality was so hard to process. I felt nauseous. Phoebe was so perfect. I kept thinking this cannot be happening. It was so surreal. Lyssy was turning 16 and the whole story of her and Phoebe was so beautiful. We were gutted.
We went outside to sit in the car and to process and talk about what to do, even though we both already knew deep inside what had to happen. The doctor had alluded to the fact that she probably wouldn’t make it.
The anger and sadness I felt was almost unbearable. My baby was hurting and that KILLED me. I wanted to hurt someone for causing her to have to feel that pain but there was no one to hurt.
I sat down on the ground beside my car sobbing violently, bawling my eyes out. I sat there and let out what I was feeling inside. Lyssy was right beside me feeling utter grief, deep deep pain, and disbelief, but didn’t say a word. I gathered myself long enough to get up and get inside the car and we just sat in silence. “Sweet 16 birthday present” was playing over and over in my mind. Death was knocking at our door, as it has a way of doing, and we had no choice but to walk through it.
“No, no, no…” I kept saying to God. “NO! This CANNOT be her memory!” I was so angry and sad.
I was wiping snot and tears as we sat there. I was tormented by the pain I knew SHE was feeling.
Right there in the middle of that awful, awful, gut wrenching moment, God put a rainbow in the sky.
The sky was clear. The sun was setting. And a rainbow…
A RAINBOW.
Sitting in my car with Lyssy, the silence was so loud, and mentally I was just in such a dark place. I looked at the rainbow in disbelief. I said out loud, “A RAINBOW, God! WHAT does that even mean right now!?”
The power of that rainbow had yet to penetrate my heart, but it had definitely landed there. There was a comfort He was giving us brewing. I was just so stuck in hurting right then.
I knew He wanted my attention but there in that moment I was too deplete to give my attention to anything or anyone. I just needed to be sad and I needed to help my baby, yet I felt so helpless.
We had to take a deep breath, walk inside, and tell them to put Phoebe down. I could hardly let the words out of my mouth. It was devastating.
The drive home was a blur.
My son’s birthday dinner and cake was a blur. I was numb with grief. I was grieving the loss of something so perfect, and I was grieving for the pain and disappointment I knew my baby was feeling. It killed me. I kept thinking it was all my fault. All the what if’s were haunting me. What did I do wrong? Could I have done something differently? Could I have protected her from this? Should I not have gotten her immunizations at a mobile vet? Were they wrong about her age? All the things that didn’t make sense, but I just needed answers to why.
The next day felt like a dream. I took Lyssy to school and again it was silence between us. There were just no words for what we were feeling. I wanted to run away with her and do ANYTHING to take her pain away. I started bawling the second she closed the door. I wanted her with me so I could nurture and love her.
I had wanted THIS birthday to be so special yet this was our reality. Death is brutal.
The next few days felt so sad and we were just going through all the routine motions.
I had to make this RIGHT somehow.
I became determined to find another kitten but I didn’t tell Elysse right away. I knew what she would say no and I knew she wasn’t ready.
I also started really thinking about that rainbow. I was hurting but I was desperately needing my Papa’s comfort. I KNEW I had to hand over this hurt to Him. Because I know that His love sets me free.
He was right there in the middle of our pain, we were just too hurt to acknowledge Him. I began praying and leaning into Him. He has been nothing but faithful to me my entire life. He has calmed every storm and redeemed every hard thing I’ve walked through. He is the REDEEMER, the HEALER, and the COMFORTER in EVERY big and small detail of our lives if we give Him our hearts. I had to EXPECT God’s goodness. I had to shift my vision off the disappointment and onto His faithfulness. I had NO REASON not to trust Him.
After a few days of praying and looking, I went to Lyssy one morning to wake her for school and nervously told her that I had been looking. She said, “NO mom.” I got on my knees and desperately said, “Yes, you have to” as I held back tears. “You HAVE to because I cannot live with myself with THIS being your story. I can’t live with this being your 16th birthday memory. “Please??” I begged. “For me?”
I told her she was too good of a mommy to NOT have a kitten, and has too much love to give. I begged her to not let fear win and keep her from loving. Her love is too precious to be forced into hiding in fear. I couldn’t accept that.
She slowly obliged and told me she would think about it. I was so grateful for that response.
I had researched several kitties for adoption around the Houston area. We never could settle for a specific one. I was working hard as I wanted her to have it before her birthday and time was running out.
We narrowed it down to three kittens. Lyssy even had names for all three. Unfortunately, each one of those three had reasons that they were not the one.
THEN, after searching, and searching, and searching, I found a kitty that felt perfect. There were no health issues, no setbacks, no special requirements. The only requirement was that we drive to a Pets Mart down in Houston to meet her before anyone else did. We had to be the first. This was it. After strenuously looking, this felt so right and the date was one day away from Elysse’s 16th birthday.
I was praying with all my heart pleading to God for this kitten to be special. We needed a miracle. I begged. I knew I was taking a big risk asking my baby to open her heart again. I deeply longed for redemption and healing for her spirit. I needed to see God in this adoption. I needed Him to lead us. I needed to know I was doing the right thing. This would be the kitty that was the rainbow after the storm. This would be Elysse’s rainbow baby.
I picked her up from school and we drove down to Houston just her and I. We were so anxious, nervous AND excited. Honestly we were a ball of emotions. But mostly we couldn’t wait to meet her!
When we anxiously walked up to the kittens it took us a few seconds to find “Quinn” in the commotion of her siblings. When we found her she was sweetly laying in her bed while her siblings were full of energy and playing.
The bed she was laying on, as if she was patiently awaiting our arrival, was covered in RAINBOWS.
It’s hard to explain what we felt when we saw the rainbows on her bed. It was insane. Anytime I know God is showing us the way in these sort of details, it still to this day completely blows my mind. It’s what my heart longs for. We knew without a doubt that she was meant to be.
Lyssy is the queen of names, and named her rainbow baby Winter. From the start, Winter has been an angel with BIG personality. She is the sweetest most talkative kitty and she is our gift.
Thanks to our Father, Lyssy opened her heart to risk love again and it is now filled. Winter was made for her. My gratefulness to God is overflowing. To watch this unfold, to watch beauty from ashes and to experience it, has changed my life and my perspective of going through loss of any sort.
I have witnessed and experienced God’s faithfulness in my life, time, and time, and time, again. I wrote this story to encourage someone out there that God is present in our pain and in our losses. He is present waiting to lead, love, comfort, and heal. Sometimes we feel like He is absent in our pain but it’s usually because we fail to acknowledge His presence and His response is to patiently wait.
A couple of weeks after we had to put Phoebe down I had to take my red retriever to the vet. When we were leaving the receptionist said, “Mrs. Hall, did you put your kitty down at the emergency vet? I am so sorry for your loss.”
A little surprised I replied, “Yes, ma’am, how did you know that?”
She said, “The emergency vet sent a card for us to give to you.” Then she handed me the card. It was a sympathy card. It was so kind of them.
I pulled the card out of the envelope and it was covered in rainbows.
Every employee from their office had written condolences.
Amidst my tears I shared our story with the two front office ladies and they both started crying. I shared how GOOD our God (my Papa) is. His love overwhelms my heart.
Our little story is realms away from being ANYTHING like losing a baby or child. But I believe that is the beauty of having a relationship with our Father. He comes so close to us in ANY severity of pain. Great loss and small. He will comfort them ALL.
I have no idea what I ever did to deserve so much love. The TRUTH is that I didn’t do anything. This is His nature for me AND for you. This is WHY I’ve learned to expect His goodness. He is so faithful and He IS SO GOOD.
“We are going to navigate lots of pain in this life but we cannot take our eyes off Jesus.”
~Levi Lusko
PROMISE~
“He will bless us when we are broken-hearted with His presence.”
Eyes Of A Lion 