Vignettes on love {2}
January 28, 2016 § 2 Comments
Several weeks ago, I had an idea, an idea to document through writing some of the instances of love in my life.
The idea was born after I experienced a sense of love during a strangely mystical yoga class. I liked the idea a lot because I knew that writing about love would force me to be more aware of the love that already exists in my life, and I’ve found that when I acknowledge love, I become more grateful for it, and when I become more grateful, I am also filled with joy.
And, let’s face it, we could all use a little more joy.
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For better or for worse, I have a tendency to plan what I want to write in my head long before I sit down to actually write it. So, last week, when I was visiting my parents on the East Coast, I began outlining this blog post in my mind.
I wanted to write about how I’ve experienced love through provision.
Like many adults, one of the things that scares me more than anything else is a lack of financial security. More than once this year (and it’s only January y’all…), the scant number of dollars in my bank account has scared me witless. But just as I began to fear I’d end up homeless or, worse, working behind a cash register at Walmart, that’s when a check I forgot was coming to me would suddenly appear in the mail.
Call me crazy, call me full of spiritual mumbo jumbo, but each time I received one of those checks, income for some freelance writing service rendered, I saw it as a sign of provision and provision as a sign of God’s love.
I thought about Matthew 6:26, Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? and I believed that while, of course, each check that appeared was really just the result of a job well done, it was also used by God as a sign to me saying, “I love you. I will provide for you.”
I guess I think the things that happen in our lives can have multiple meanings.
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That’s what I wanted to write about when I outlined this blog post last week.
Of course, that was before I returned from my trip to find, yes, two checks in the mail, but also a bill, a bill I thought was sorted out by my insurance company long ago, a bill that far outnumbered any money earned.
Provision indeed.
For a while, I thought, well, I guess I’ll have to come up with some other instance of love to write about because clearly this isn’t it.
But then I changed my mind.
Because the truth is, I do still feel provided for, I do still feel loved. I do still feel like I’d rather move forward with trust in the promise of provision, in hope that the things that happen to me and the people I love are for our good. I do still feel like whenever I reach the end of my wits, that’s when I receive a tiny little sign, sometimes in the form of a slip of paper, a sign that if a bird is a beloved creature of God, so are we — and so, so, so much more.
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A few photos from the trip:
National Archives, Washington, D.C.
Pentagon Memorial, Arlington, VA
Bristol, Rhode Island
Bristol, Rhode Island
Nothing like Mom’s kitchen flowers <3
I agree! Sometimes I automatically start interpreting what “God is doing” in my life based on what makes sense to me, but so often things don’t go the way I see them heading and then I realize that God is up to things on a whole other level. It’s a good reminder to not put God in a box, even in the ways we assume love would be shown.
I wanted to “like” this, but didn’t see a button to.
Never forget 9/11 ….