My wife, Pearl, and I were making our way home late one night and fell into one of those discussions in which everything we talked about caused discouragement.

It’s not that we didn’t have solid reasons for feelings of despair; rather, we let the tenor of our conversation deteriorate to the point that we were both really discouraged. So we continued thrashing out the problems arising from some serious health and financial challenges, but failed to acknowledge that God was in control, and that He has a thousand ways when we have none.

It was very dark out, and a light mist was falling, which only added to the melancholy picture. What we failed to verbalize—even though we had both seen it—was that there was evidence of a bright moon struggling up behind the hills to the east. As we arrived at the entrance of our long driveway, my wife, who was driving, pulled up to the mailbox to collect the mail. As I rolled down the window to reach for the mail, I looked out past the mailboxes toward the west and into the dark gloom. Then I saw something I had never seen before.

There, almost close enough to touch, was a gray bow in the sky. It was like no rainbow I had ever seen. I looked at it in astonishment and disbelief. Everyone knows there is no such thing as a rainbow at night.

My astonishment bubbled to the surface, and Pearl leaned over to look out my car window also. After one quick look Pearl pulled the car off the road, and we got out to stare in raptured amazement at the sight.

As I looked at the gray bow set against a pitch-black sky, I am sure I heard God say, “Hey, I got it. What are you all stewed up over? Did you think I had abdicated My throne? I am still in charge.” I was overcome with the goodness of my God. We continued to stare, and soon noticed that if we didn’t look directly at the bow, we could actually see a very faint red rim on the outside of the arc, but it appeared to vanish when we looked directly at it. It wasn’t long before the bow began to slowly fade, possibly because of the lessening mist, or maybe because the moon had struggled all the way up from behind the hills.

As we finally headed to the house, we marveled at the answer to an unspoken prayer. Once inside, I rushed to my computer to see if such a thing had ever been seen by anyone before, and if it even existed. I learned that “moon bows” are fairly rare but do exist under the right conditions.

All the scientific stuff aside, the right conditions were our individual need to hear from God.

And He spoke.