God gave me the gift of a miracle today.
My best friend died recently…actually months ago now.
Since her death, I have grown angry with God,
kind of that Love Hate relationship.
I know I can’t live without God,
but living with God without Laurie became too painful.
That’s where the anger came in.
You see, Laurie and I…
our whole relationship revolved around God.
We were prayer partners.
We would read the bible together, share devotionals
and how they were speaking into our lives,
we would pray together, do ministries together...
we were there for each other through thick and thin.
I refer to Laurie as my Spiritual Spouse.
There is a huge whole in my life without her.
Anyway, I have been complaining
to anyone that would listen lately
how pissed off I was with God.
Laurie was gone and I had no sign or intuition
that she was at peace with Him
and safe in His arms in heaven.
I kept asking God for signs.
At first I thought he was sending me wild turkeys as a sign.
Long story…
but basically Laurie would have called me a turkey
for even needing a sign in the first place.
So this morning, I started my morning the usual way.
I sat in my chair with my pile of books;
devotional, bible, journal, and bible study.
I always start with prayer asking God for personal requests
and then leading into asking for forgiveness and a clean heart,
and finally asking for God to bless the time I was about to spend with Him.
I specifically ask for Him to show me
exactly what He wanted me to learn and focus on for the day.
I started praying.
Jesus interrupted me and said
“Wait, I have Laurie here for you.”
“You have Laurie there? She’s there? Laurie are you there?”
Laurie responded with
“Of course I am here! Where else would I be Goofy!”
I started sobbing.
She went on to tell me that she’s been sending me flowers.
She said not to call the new series of paintings
“The Garden Series”
because they weren’t…
they were “Fields of Flowers”.
She said they went on and on. …
Laurie LOVED flowers!
One of the last things we did together
was walk hand in hand in her Garden
admiring the flowers and enjoying the fresh air
and sun on our faces.
... She told me to stop mourning
and get myself out of the mud.
She wanted me to start glorifying God.
She told me that whenever I felt lonely for her
to just look at the flowers she has sent me.
Then Jesus told me I needed to spend more time
listening to Him as opposed to speaking at Him.
I need to clarify something at this point.
I am a painter.
I have until 3 weeks ago been painting strictly birds and trees.
The flowers that I recently started painting just happened.
There was no thought involved at all!
I sat and just started seeing flowers on the canvas.
My brush moved quickly outlining the different shapes…
and before I knew it,
I was staring at my canvas completely covered with flowers.
So, you’d think the story stops there, right?
Well it doesn’t!
I then went to my devotional and as always,
I would randomly open to any page.
I felt God would choose what He wanted me to read.
This is what it said:
“Be still and know that I am God.
Your life has been tumultuous recently-
full of change and new responsibilities.
You have continued to spend time alone with Me.
You need to set aside time for listening to Me-
blocking out distractions
and reconnecting with me in the depths of your soul.”
The devotion goes on,
and you can read it in Sarah Young’s Jesus Today page 282-283.
About a week ago, a friend of mine, who also happens to be my pastor,
posted some verses from Psalm 46 on Face book.
I read the psalm that day.
A few days ago, Psalm 46 came up in another devotional.
I read again psalm 46.
Today, I decided that when I read Psalm 46,
I needed to read in a different version from the normal NIV version.
I read it from the Message.
“God is a safe place to hide,
Ready to help when we need Him.
We stand fearless at the cliff-edge of doom,
Courageous in sea storm and earthquake,
Before the rush and roar of the oceans,
The tremors that shift the mountains.
Jacob- Wrestling God fights for us,
God of the Angel Armies protects us.”
Laurie’s favorite song…
The song that we claimed as our Victory song over her cancer was
“Whom shall I Fear” (God of Angel Armies) by Chris Tomlin.
Now I know this has been a LONG post….
But seriously, how could I have left any part out?
Today… God granted my hearts desire.
Today, God gave me a miracle,
and Laurie sent me Fields of Flowers!
