A Wee Highland Calf
The Eight O’Clock
News March 2018
Beyond the Clouds Last Friday I settled down into my window seat on the ’plane looking forward to getting home. I had been nervous that we would fly out in stormy weather and I’m not good with that. However, the clouds cleared and the pilot comfortingly said that the weather en route would be fine. On reaching cruising altitude, the sight above the enormous fluffy clouds was amazing—azure blue sky with sunlight bouncing off the whiteness below. It feels so otherworldly there, closer to heaven. I was amused to read something that Barbara Walters once said, ‘Before we had airplanes and astronauts, we really thought there was an actual place beyond the clouds, somewhere over the rainbow, there was an actual place and we could go above the clouds and find it there’. I’m sorry that she appears disappointed because I know there is an actual place, not seen from the plane window… we have to go a little further. There are two stars in the sky that I look at on nights when I need to be close to my mom or my sister—I know they are there in that place, that place with God called Heaven. ‘The air up there in the clouds is very pure and fine, bracing and delicious. And why shouldn’t it be?’ said Mark Twain, ‘it is the same that angels breathe’. So, on my journey, with my head in the clouds literally and figuratively, I thought of how the clouds can depict life’s journey until as it is written in 1 Thessalonians 4:17, ‘We who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord’. When my flight neared Cape Town, all of a sudden the plane was enveloped in very dense grey cloud and we appeared to go into a holding pattern. A bit like life, all going smoothly and then enveloped in a cloud that we didn’t see coming. Out of the window I could see nothing, the plane was held in limbo for at least 10 minutes and then we began the descent. The cloud persisted, the ground was completely invisible. I was extremely nervous. I had to trust the skill of the pilot and the effective workings of the cockpit instruments. We were getting closer and closer to the ground and still no visibility. I prayed very hard! Like life again, March 2018 Eight O’Clock News
8 am Service, Christ Church, Kenilworth 021-797-6332
trusting God when we can’t see where we are going, when the dark clouds persist and there are no earthly signposts showing us which way to go. Trusting God no matter what, is like not needing to be in the cockpit to land the plane; even more so God is in control at all times. He is everywhere, above and below the clouds, in the midst of them and in the storms too. ‘Even when the sky is filled with clouds, the sun still shines above’ (Janet Donaghy). I think it should be ‘The Son still shines above’.
The falling rain dissolves into mist and the thunder begins to die, as the sporadic lightning fades an arch of colour pours from the sky. Rainbows appear after mighty storms when things look their worst. Just when the sky is darkest gray, out of Heaven does a rainbow burst. God first sent the rainbow to Noah as a sign that His word is true. The rainbow's eternal message still speaks to me and you. The rainbow is a sign of God's promise that He will guide us through any storm, That He will ease all our troubles, No matter what their form. When you feel battered by life's storms and you are filled with doubt and dismay, just remember God's rainbow is coming, For its blessing you have only to pray. (Author Unknown) - Cheryl Anderson