My brother was driving on our second-to-last day in Iceland. I had driven all the hours the day before, and the day before that. The days and the waterfalls, each more splendid than the next, blended together. Jacob had us going at a grueling pace—nine days for the whole island—and I was exhausted. Our campsite the previous evening had a hot tub fed by natural hot springs. It steamed, gloriously, with the smell of sulfur, so obviously we stayed up late, luxuriating. Warmth was hard to come by, especially at night. 

But on this second-to-last day, my brother was driving, and I was drifting in and out of a sleepy half-doze born of frigid six-hour sleep nights and lots of hiking. The Shining by Stephen King droned in my ears. (I picked this audiobook, inspired by Noah’s reviews, after we finished J’s pick: Sunrise on the Reaping. The two of us certainly had chipper taste.) 

We drove through endless yellow fields that morning, under an endless blue sky. Hills bumped gently by, and every so often, I startled myself into opening my eyes. One of these times, I saw a rainbow. A whole one, arching from end to end in the air, meeting the ground on either side. 

I’ve only seen two full rainbows in my life with bands of color bending all the way to earth. I saw the first my freshman year at Calvin, curving over Knollcrest dining hall, the color almost out of place over the reddish brown brick. This was the second. 

The last month of my life—between the writing of my previous post for this blog and the writing of this one—has been crazy. 

I was baptized on Easter Sunday, into the congregation that has been my home for the last four years. I visited Iceland with my brother, a blast of a trip and the first time we spent time on our own together as adults. I celebrated the engagement of my best friend and mourned the breakup of the best roommate a girl could ever have. I had my last Sunday dinner with these people, in this place, in this context. I congratulated my friends, nearly all of them, as they graduated. I hugged my love after he made his profession of faith. 

In the Christian Reformed tradition (a tradition I was unfamiliar with until I came to Calvin), infants are baptized, according to the liturgy, as “the sign and seal of God’s promises to this covenant people.” Later, then, as older children or adults, they may choose to make a profession of faith, in which they personally and publicly respond to the promises made to them in baptism. One of the charges in this liturgy of profession of faith is to “remember your baptism”—remember the promises of resurrection and new life that God has made to you. 

Now, I would consider myself still rather theologically illiterate. I have far more questions than answers; some questions I could probably find answers for with enough study, and many more questions have answers I’ll probably never know. But I do know, I do believe, that God has made me, personally, a series of beautiful promises—not necessarily ones of ease or pleasure, but promises of God’s presence. 

And so, I remembered my baptism as I drank cold clear water seconds after it fell hundreds feet through the air off a cliff, water I drank as I knelt in a high and narrow cathedral of dripping emerald moss, water I drank as I heard the unending thunder of it pounding into a wide, shallow pool. I remembered my baptism when I dipped my hand in the frigid blue water of a glacier, when I felt mist clinging to my face and dampening my clothes, when I watched the graceful, floating powdered sugar descent—deceptively powerful—of waterfall after waterfall after waterfall.

At a few of those waterfalls, we saw rainbows where the mist from the waterfall interacted with the sunlight to create a delightful little miracle, each time some small happiness, a gift I didn’t need and wasn’t expecting. 

In the Old Testament, a rainbow was a sign of God’s faithfulness, a sign of a promise God made to man. God has been making promises to humanity for ages past and ages to come. And so, today, next month, when I’m pacing in artificial light, smelling the smell of water that has been chlorinated to death, when I’m pacing and fretting about my life plans and my people, here too shall I remember. 

Thank the Lord for rainbows and waterfalls. 

Savannah Shustack

Savannah Shustack graduated from Calvin in 2024 with a major in literature and plans to have the job of “books” one day. Rather like Ken, she is still figuring life out; the job “books” provides plenty of wiggle room, though she’s currently leaning toward being a librarian. Savannah is a New England native who enjoys watching hockey (Go Bruins!) and playing board games—especially ones she can win.