Old Faithful's Rainbow (med)

I shot this picture of Old Faithful while at Yellowstone National Park in August of 2011, this last summer. We've been there several times, but the different kinds of pictures we get every time we visit amazes me because the pictures we end up with always seem to depend on so many factors, like the weather and the time of day and how we are feeling at the moment and etc. We went this year since my mom and my youngest son had never been there before but had always wanted to go, so we loaded up the truck and made a quick trip of it with them and his two daughters, my granddaughters. Although I've taken quite a few pictures of Old Faithful in the past, I've never taken one that had a rainbow attached to it like what had happened here in this photo. It really was breathtaking. To think I nearly missed it!

 

What had happened was that my husband was having troubles with his hip because of a kind of degenerative bone disease going on in them that was recently diagnosed, and my mom has had to slow down over the years because of various debilitating diseases that have sadly sapped her strength and zip. As a result, he and she needed to take it easy and not go on the trail but stay behind in the bleachers area in front of Old Faithful. Although Pete was normally the first to go on any kind of hike or walk in order to explore up until this year, he just couldn't this time. As a result, I pulled up my bootstraps, so to speak, and walked around the wooded pathway at the Old Faithful area with my youngest son and his two daughters, showing them everything that I had noticed before during the other times I had visited the area, taking pictures of it all over again with my new handy dandy camera.

 

Since we had spent the earlier part of the day exploring West Thumb, which is amazing also, we were a little late in getting to the Old Faithful site. Oddly, the wood-planked pathway at Old Faithful took some turns that I hadn't explored before, so we kind of took our time. When Old Faithful began to blow during the first part of us being there, we were at that time on the other side of it (about halfway up the trail) than where you see the above picture taken. When I saw it, I thought we had better get back before it gets too dark to really appreciate it and its grandeur the next time it blew.

 

From the distance, my husband saw us wandering around and thought I had gotten myself lost, as usual, again (since I have a severely bad sense of direction, lol; he usually always comes to my rescue). As a result, he walked up the other side of the trail just a little and was motioning for us to follow him. However, this time, I wasn't lost; but I thought it was sweet that he met us there, just in case… He's so thoughtful that way. Then he let me know why. He didn't want me to miss the next time Old Faithful was supposed to blow because he had seen a really cool rainbow appear in the fountain’s mist. He wasn't sure if the sun were going to hit the mist just right again, but he had wanted me there with the camera just in case. (Since then, I have read on Flickr that many rainbows can be caught on camera at Yellowstone right around sunset if the sun is behind the one taking the picture. It must be true because that is exactly what happened in this photo.)

 

Consequently, we hurried over to the bleachers and set the camera up on the tripod, which we had never tried before, taking shots of it normally while just freely holding the camera (yeah, I know, cop a clue if I at all want to be any kind of photographer at all). We had a little while to wait for it to erupt again, so we ate (though the prices for eating there were exorbitantly ridiculous to say the least) because we were going to race to the next area in Yellowstone in order to take in as much of the scenery as possible since we only had one more day to explore it, that is the next day.

 

Suddenly Old Faithful started bubblin' and abrewin', making its typically loud sputtering and spewing noises, alongside of the most awful putrid rotten egg/sulfur smell that permeates nearly the whole of the Yellowstone area. (You get used to it after the first couple of times of being there and nearly dying from it, lol.) I took several shots to make sure I was able to get the whole view of it in the pictures. There was nothing unusual at first about it except for the time of day when things start to get so pretty, just when the sun begins to settle on the horizon, saturating everything with more color and/or illuminating everything with a mysterious kind of golden glow. I did get some pretty good shots of the water bursting forth from it but nothing terribly dramatic.

 

Then, Pete said in a kind of whispered hush, "Look! The rainbow’s back. I wasn't sure it was going to happen again." There it was--bright and beautiful, majestic and spectacular as could be--a double rainbow, in fact, emerging from its mist, though my camera didn't really pick up on the double rainbow part much at all. Accordingly, I took my cue and started madly clicking shot after shot after shot after shot of it because I didn't have a wide angle lens and had to get the whole scene in little portions so that later on I could stitch them together, which is what I did. Even after all the work I put in stitching them all together in my graphics programs (because the function for it really doesn’t work), it still was so much more impressive in person because the double rainbow part didn't show up hardly at all in the photos, being mostly lost in the stitching process I think. (I know...we aren't supposed to admit that we just didn't quite get it in the picture, but truly, one has to be there to get the proper feel of it all.)

 

Meanwhile, a quiet hush had fallen over the crowd viewing this perfect moment as the loud thrashing of the water from the geyser along with its spurts and sputters were the only things to be noticed outside of this beautiful vision. It's captivating to watch people's reactions to such a natural wonder as a rainbow, which they often take for granted. It's as though, for a moment, they know they are given a glimpse into an otherworldly reality, eternity, but have to close it off quickly right afterward because I think maybe they are afraid they may seek only it in this life (as if that’s a bad thing somehow) or fear the rejection of the Creator of that and this reality...sadness...though He never would. As I looked at this photo afterward and thought of these things, I was reminded of several experiences I'd had with the Lord that, to me, are absolutely represented in this scene.

 

To explain, back in June and July of 2003, I had a mind-blowing experience with Jesus and His Love as a result of this reality and that reality in eternity touching momentarily, which lasted about 40 days (though really it'd had a 10 day lead up, bringing the total to really 50 days, and the last 10 days of the 40 days was really an easy let down period). His Love felt like the single most intense and wild pleasure waves I had ever felt and could ever possibly feel in my entire life, starting from my abdomen washing outward. The waves of love kind of reminded me of what it feels like in my abdomen when I'm in the passenger seat of a car while a motorist drives his/her vehicle quickly over an intersection that has long and wide bumps on it because of poor road renewal management, but with the feeling multiplied by like 100 times over and over and over again.

 

Just for the sake of argument, I should mention it wasn't an emotional response to anything; but the waves had a distinctly physically palpable sense to them. Also, I had been doing nothing that I was even remotely emotional about before it occurred. All that had gone on before it was that I had been sleeping and dreaming. However, the night before during my devotional time with Jesus had been somewhat of a puzzle to me. Although, again, I hadn’t been “feeling” particularly emotional, cerebral instead really, I felt what seemed like to me His physically attaching Himself to my abdomen like with an umbilical cord, after He pulled back what physically felt like a thick piece of skin and removing it. My belly had actually jiggled afterward like Jello, though I was by no means fat at the time. It was the strangest sensation, almost like a painless circumcision had taken place. The waves the next day were nearly constant and continued to be for the next couple of days unless I was sleeping. Then I'd wake up, and it would start all over again. It was spectacularly wonderful beyond all descriptive words.

 

By the third day, the waves started to wane a bit which scared me because I thought it was all just going to go away, and I'd be left alone without the Lord's massively wonderful Love again. As a result, I just sobbed and prayed…and sobbed and prayed…because I thought maybe something was wrong; and if it wasn’t, I just needed more time. Suddenly, I began to feel a kind of bubbling feeling in my lower abdomen where the waves had been, like water in a Jacuzzi feels on skin but in me, not on the surface of me. It can also be described as how one's hand feels under a bathtub faucet with the water flowing full force on it, kind of like a fountain or a geyser as shown above in this picture. This bubbling physical sensation rushed outward, like a geyser or a fountain it seemed, not as though it were coming into me but out from me. Thus when the waves of love weren't flowing, what can only be described as, this Living Water was.

 

Then it was as though the Lord began quietly comforting my heart by letting me know that this Fountain of Living Water was part of the whole 40 Day Love Experience but was just a different part of it and that, when I wasn't feeling His Love, I would be feeling His Presence in this way. To me, the above picture with the rainbow coming off from the fountain depicts His Presence, His Glory, perfectly as it radiates off a person when He is filling one with Himself in this VERY real way.

 

In case anyone thinks I am just going off half-cocked about some kind of weirdo new age experience, I thought I should point out how very grounded in Scripture this loving experience along with the Living Water is, which is partly why I attached some passages to the above picture. Though I'm very partial to the New International Version, the King James Version more adequately seems to capture the essence of this experience. I can only assume it captures it this way because people in "religious" circles of today haven't even remotely been seeking the Lord in these ways though they did in yesteryear, for not everyone had been deceived yet through all of the media and propaganda set up against the Lord. I mean to say that people who translate the Bible, nowadays, haven't actually been having an intimate and personal relationship with Him where there is more than just words in an ancient book spouting off some principles and yada yada to live by or there is more than this book depicting a far away someone who can magically answer one's prayers for needs to be met. That's all well and good and everything, but there is so much more than ONLY that. He can be more real to a person than even one's own children or spouse or parents if one will step out and believe Him for it. These passages have to do with the waves of love part of the 40 Day Love Experience I physically seemed to feel from Him: “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!” (1 John 3:1, NIV). “If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing” (1 Corinthians13:3, NIV). Paul was talking about how we should not be martyred for the sake of the Lord upon choice if we have not had this love experience with Jesus, first. Obviously from this passage, we can see that this kind of love is not something we can conjure up ourselves with being good or with what some have mistakenly called “charity.”

 

Here is another passage that has to do with this 40 Day Love Experience:

 

When they had finished eating, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?”…

 

…Again Jesus said, “Simon son of John, do you TRULY love me?”…

 

…“Simon son of John, do you [even] love me?” (John 21:18, NIV)

 

There have been many “interpretations” as to what Jesus meant in that passage. However I truly believe that what He was trying to say here was for all of us who “think” we have the love of God. He was saying that we don’t really love Him unless we TRULY experience His Love in the way I shared above. Note how this conversation went on between the two of them DURING that 50 days before the Holy Spirit baptized them all. Thus, this drilling was not JUST for Peter but for all us Peters out here who live in Ideology Land, seeing through a glass darkly, of what love is. There is no way we can love Him unless we first allow Him to love on us this way. Remember, ALL of the apostles ran away in fear when the Lord was arrested and crucified until they received His Love and the Baptism of the Holy Spirit. (Yeah, I know some say John didn’t run away but was present while Jesus was being crucified, but I think they are wrong; I believe it was Lazarus who didn’t, not John because Lazarus is stated in John as the “disciple” Jesus loved and could have been the only one who upon his own resurrection had felt God’s Real Love in this way.) But wait; there’s more…to substantiate this take on His Love:

 

“This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us…” (1 John 4:10).

 

And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.

 

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. We love because he first loved us. (1 John 4:16-19, NIV)

 

Note that this was the “perfection” in 1 Corinthians many theologians mistake for what they think was the Bible’s canon that was to come. Thus, we can in no way really love Him, or for that matter anyone else, unless He loves us first in this very real way. In addition, this next passage gives great weight to all of what I just said:

 

After his suffering, he showed himself to these men and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God. (Acts 1:3, NIV)

 

Remember, everything that is written was not meant as an exception to the rule, as the media and our false religious leaders have taught us, but was written to show us the standard with which we can measure what is of the Lord because “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” (Hebrews 13:8, NIV).

 

This love was, of course, nothing new. It’s all over in Psalms, written especially by David who became King of Israel. It was just completely opened up to everyone through Jesus’ appearance on the world scene and through His shedding His Blood for us, not only for the prophets of the Old Testament but now also for us everyday people in fulfillment of Moses’ heart’s desire (Exodus 11:23-30). Did anyone actually think God wouldn’t answer Moses’ heart’s desire, the one man God chose to use to deliver Israel from slavery and spoke to him face to face? Seriously, this unbelief was thought even after, upon Moses’ request, God opened up the Red Sea and even after God made water burst forth from the rock in the desert/wilderness. Come on!!!! Here are some passages relating to this love mentioned all over Psalms: “Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love / that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days” (Psalm 90:14, NIV). I know this applies because in the morning and at night is when I mostly feel it now.

 

Also, note all of Matthew 22:1-14 about the Wedding Banquet. This is His Table of Love set before us. Some, however, refuse to come in either because of fear (the fear mentioned in 1 John above) or viewing it as a waste of time, not important enough to them, or because of jealousy and feelings of inadequacy. Nonetheless, there are so many more passages about this kind of love, especially in Song of Solomon; but for the sake of brevity, I’ll stop here.

 

As for the Living Water part of the Love Experience, here are some passages that relate to it, which are also the ones I placed above in the picture because what they depict is what I felt bursting forth out of me from within me: “He that believeth on me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water” (John 7:38, KJV). “A garden enclosed is my sister, my spouse; a spring shut up, a fountain sealed...A fountain of gardens, a well of living waters, and streams from Lebanon” (Song of Solomon 4:12-15, KJV). “For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes” (Revelation 7:17, KJV). “And he said unto me, It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely” (Revelation 21:6, KJV).

 

Interestingly enough, since we moved into the house we currently live at, rainbows appear often in the field out from in back of our house. During the summers, we literally see dozens of double rainbows. Oddly, they seem to appear now wherever we go during these months. I have tons of pictures to prove it, taking pictures of some of them because of various reasons. In fact, I think the first time Pete and I went to Yellowstone together (though we both had been there in our youth apart from each other, my first and only time when I was 12), a humongous double rainbow appeared over Yellowstone Lake while we were at West Thumb. (I hope to put that one up here on Flickr sometime, too, lol.) These rainbows also having to do with Scripture: In Revelation 4:3, we are told that one completely encircles God’s Throne, changing from color to color depending on what part of His Spiritual blessings are present at the time though emerald is the color caught by the Apostle John at the time when he was present. The rainbow in this setting of Heaven is the resultant glory of His Presence that appears where He is. That it was set in our skies as a reminder of His Presence in certain situations in life doesn’t seem to me too hard to figure out allegorically and thus not a huge stretch.

 

It never fails that every time I see these rainbows, I wonder what kind of a lovingly spectacular display of affection wrapped up in an awesomely marvelous experience with the Lord is next. In the meantime, these rainbows, like the one above, give me a sweet kind of comfort, knowing that even more of the Lord's Presence is yet to come...for anyone who seeks Him wholeheartedly and in faith through Jesus and by the Holy Spirit. In a kind of quiet way, I am reassured by it through its wide spectrum of color that whatever last loving experience I have had will not be the final one since He has been and is and always will be Old Faithful in sharing the rainbow of Himself with us in all of His wonderful displays of Love through His Presence.

 

© 9-28-2011 Victoria Tribby

 

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