Here is what I like about God: When you really need an answer (really need), you get one. It might not be the answer you think you need. You might not even be aware that you asked a question. But you know that you’ve gotten an answer, even if it’s not the answer. Those who know me well can sometimes tell when I am struggling. Sometimes they do not. But God, that Entity about whom I wrote last night, knows even better than I do when I am struggling and when I might need to know that I’m not in this alone.
This morning I woke late. Yesterday morning I had taken a walk on the wild side and drank fully caffeinated coffee at 11:00 a.m. (I stopped drinking “fully-leaded” coffee a number of years ago, but I’d run out of it and had borrowed some regular coffee from my sister.) I have learned that drinking caffeine will cause me to be awake, usually wide awake, 12 hours after I’ve consumed it. Thus, I was wide awake at 11:00 p.m. last night, trying to will myself to sleep. Besides the caffeine, I had a number of somewhat troublesome thoughts on my mind. Foolishly I thought to banish them by listening to my audiobook, which, unfortunately is in a very dramatic and exciting juncture and if anything proved to be even more stimulating than if I had chosen something a little more contemplative. In fact, two beloved characters had died and I found myself mourning alongside the other characters who had been left behind trying to make sense of their deaths. Good heavens!
Thus my day ended somewhat as it had begun: with me being in a somewhat odd, cranky, fuzzy space. My weekend had in fact been an odd mixture of emotions that had left me feeling somewhat unbalanced. So this morning when I woke late, I managed to only write a single page in my morning journal. What I scrawled on that page was part SOS to God and part my usual well wishing to “all beings,” with which I almost always end my morning journal each day. “God–if you are ‘up there'” I wrote, “and if there’s something I need to see or do to improve where things stand in my life right now, I sure need your help…I need positive signs that all can and shall be well…”
As I dressed and engaged in my typical morning routine I found myself praying, talking to God, asking for help, asking for a simple acknowledgment of Divine presence with and looking out for me. One of first of many answers came as I walked the dog this morning. I looked on my phone and discovered an email from my teenage niece by way of sister. It was a virtual bouquet of flowers, with a message underneath that said, “We love you, Aunt Terry! Have a great week! All will be well.” All will be well. It’s a good thing no one was watching me as I trudged around the yard with the dog, my eyes blinded by the tears that had spilled out and run down my face. In the space of an hour, from the time I started writing my journal at 6:30 until the time I walked out of the house to head for work at 7:30, I received message after message that let me know God had heard me. I have learned from experience and practice that God speaks to me in many small ways, rarely in big booming ones; but nearly every time I’ve reached out recently and asked for a sign, it comes swiftly–this morning in a matter of minutes.
I am grateful for the “still small voice” that God uses to speak to me and for the signs I receive that let me know I am heard. As I said in yesterday’s blog, I am not looking for God to “swoop in and fix things.” For now, it’s simply enough for me to know that God is there.
© M. T. Chamblee, 2013
