corbis/getty
“I was so angry at God when our 5-year-old daughter lost her battle with leukemia. I didn’t understand how He could take such a precious, beautiful girl before she even had a chance at life, and my broken heart raged at Him for it…there was just no one else to blame. People tried to say the right things: ‘She’s not suffering,’ ‘She’s in a better place,’ ‘She’s sitting on Jesus’s knee,’ but I didn’t want to hear it. All I wanted was Wendy back in my arms, but I knew no one could give me that.
“On the first day my husband went back to work after our daughter’s funeral, the quietness of the house nearly suffocated me. I went up to Wendy’s room and tearfully gazed at her toys, her little pink sneakers still scattered on the floor, the Frozen poster on her wall…then I spotted the little art table where her last drawing sat under her crayons. Through tears I saw that she had drawn a rainbow arching across a bright blue sky. Sketches of her father and I stood on one end of the rainbow, holding hands, and a smiling version of herself stood on the other.
“To my amazement, Wendy had colored a yellow halo over her head and drawn a pair of purple—her favorite color—wings on her back. In that moment, tears spilled from my eyes and I softly laughed, realizing that my girl had always been an angel. I knew without a doubt that God loved her and she was happy, vibrant and healthy in Heaven. With a deep breath and a silent prayer, I opened my heart and let Him in. I thanked Him for blessing us with Wendy, even if only for a little while. Immediately my anger lifted, and for the first time since I had lost her, I felt at peace.
“Just then, something caught my eye and I slowly walked to the window. There, stretched across the sky was a vision that bathed me in love…Wendy’s rainbow.” —Betty Jones, 38, Atlanta
