Believe Reflections: God Moments

A couple weeks ago, nearly 75 women came together at Two Talls Too to listen to Andrea L. Blair, DMHG, talk about her experiences with cancer and divorce. Her talk inspired a number of reflections from me, this being the third.

As I told you about last week, Mrs. Blair shared with us a moving story of a time when she heard the voice of God. She heard a voice outside of her self call her, "My daughter, My precious, My child." Her voice cracked and tears fell as she told us about this experience. This was a life changing moment for her. This experience led to her suffix, DMHG, Daughter of the Most High God.

This makes me ask two (okay, maybe 3) questions, the second (and third) of which I'll ask this week:

Don't we all have God moments? Why are we so reluctant to share them?

Yes, Mrs. Blair's experiences really touched her. It was exactly what she needed at the time, but don't we all have such experiences? Let me share a couple of mine:

I'm a convert to the Catholic Church. I was a college student at the time. I was at home visiting my family for Thanksgiving about a month before I was scheduled to be baptized Catholic. For days I had been praying for God to give me a sign that I was on the right track. I knew that being initiated into the Catholic Church was a big deal and it was a decision I would never be able to take back. 

One day I was in the pew before Mass asking yet again for a sign. Then, a voice spoke to me. It was definitely outside of myself, I wasn't making up these words myself. It said essentially that if He didn't want me to be Catholic, He wouldn't have put the people in my life who were so influential in my conversion. I would have never met my new Catholic friends if God didn't want me to be Catholic. That was the sign I needed. 

But God moments don't have to be that dramatic. That is the only time in my life I have ever heard a voice. It can be as simple as laying in bed with your child. 

Baby asleep in his own bed, not in his parents' bed. Hint, hint.

One night a few months ago, my son and I were in our bed waiting for my husband to get done with whatever video game he was working on and join us. My son rolled around until he fell asleep. I was in one of those moods where I didn't feel like doing anything. I didn't want to read. I just wanted my husband to get his butt in bed so we could turn off the light and I could go to sleep. In the silence of the room, I could feel everything that was going on. I was aware of my breathing. I could feel my heartbeat and my son's heartbeat. 

I could feel a heartbeat separate from ours. It was deeper and stronger. I felt like it must be the heartbeat of the Earth. It made me think about how interconnected we all are. It reminded me of all those paintings of Mary with all of the people of the Earth protected underneath her cloak. Ultimately, it made me think about the Sacred Heart. 

So, this leads me to my second question. Why was it so difficult for me to share with you my stories? In my last blog, it took me months to get up the courage to post my story of my experience with the devil. Why was that so hard? Why don't we share these stories all of the time?

Maybe we are afraid people will think we're nuts? We are taught that only things that are tangible and measurable are real. But that's unreasonable. There's a term for that, "scientism" and it's been denounced by popes for generations. It's the opposite extreme of Bible literalism, and the Truth is actually somewhere in between. In some sense, these God moments are more real than our everyday life and we need to take comfort in them and "comfort others with the comfort we have been given" (2 Corinthians 1:4).

Maybe we're also afraid of coming across as prideful? "Look at me, I'm special. God talked to me. Nanny-nanny-boo-boo!" I still think if we were all honest with ourselves and with each other, we would discover that each and every one of us has had a least one God moment in our lives. God is always there and He cares about us deeply, why wouldn't He at least attempt to communicate with us all every once in a while? We might not always be listening, but I'm sure He's almost always talking.

I guess you need to test the spirits, but that's a post for another time. (Source)

All readers: You are welcome to join us for the next Ladies Night Out, Food and Faith! Stay tuned. We have them every other month on a Monday evening. I'll be posting the details once we have them. There will be an announcement very soon about who will be speaking in April!!!