Hear It on Sunday, Use It on Monday: When You’re Looking for a Sign

The day my sister-in-law’s father died, she pulled into the driveway of her parents’ home wrung dry with grief and witnessed a full rainbow arched right over the roof of the house. It was, she told me later, a sign from God, a sign of hope, peace and comfort in the midst of sadness and dispair.

Just a few weeks later, as my mother-in-law lay dying in a hospital bed in her family room, I looked for a rainbow, too. I looked every day, scanning the cloudless Nebraska horizon for signs of rain. I...