A Message in the Sky....

I keep spotting Red Birds.

To me, it means something, but maybe I am reading into things. I can tend to do that, and slowly after a train of thoughts, I shape and mold a message in the sky. There is a piece of me that sincerely believes words and letters are written to me on pages in the clouds, seas and flowers. In the end, I always question if it is real or just my imagination playing Hide and Seek or Ghosts in the Graveyard, leaving me with trails of hope but no tangible find. Seems to me, His creation has always been a means of communication. He spoke the trees, spiders, dandelions, and rivers into their existence. He used prophets to relay the message of promises to come and prevailing justice. He came as the Word made flesh, and taught the crowds on hills and outside synagogues. God speaks in many ways and over centuries of time. Communication is sometimes loud and sometimes soft. But it is.

So with me, He is personal with Red Birds. The truth is, I can't tell if I spot them more regularly, or if they are directed across my path more often lately. Perched on the pavement, just catching my eye between two cars in his electric, bold color, and just for a second, a Red Bird stood still. I looked away to lock my front door, and turning around to catch another little glance at him, but he was gone...Two fluttered by on the back porch as I sat at my kitchen table reading and daydreaming...One landed on the bush in front of me as I sat talking to a friend in her car...and as I turned the corner last week, I noticed for the first time a street sign I have passed a hundred times...it's name, "Red Bird Street." These are just a few to name right now, but it is daily and whether it is living, and darting through the sky, or imprinted on a t-shirt, license plate, or semi-truck...they are appearing all over and every day.

But it's so good. I need to know He cares, listens, responds, and even moves His small creatures to speak a soft song of hope to me. My heart is tender and needy to hear His mercies as my scales are being ripped away...as I change and fall and grow, and long for more but still settle for less.

So tomorrow...The alarm will go off early and I'll get up sharp and alert...I'll listen and wait, and look. Maybe a Red Bird. Maybe something else altogether. Who knows?

A five minute, Holy encounter.

She asked if I had five minutes. I was late to school, being set back with a migraine, and I had a parent meeting at 8. It was 7:45. She wanted 5 minutes, that was all.

I had woken up with a headache that had started at 9:30 the night before. I know this kind. It begins slowly at the base of the left side of the back of my head. It creeps a little higher and thumps around leaving me in pain and even sort of blue. So this particular morning required a prescription and thirty more minutes lying in bed until it subsided. I got up and began to get ready…I found myself feeling as I have been for the last week; distressed and riding along the edge of despair. I glanced across the mirror in my bathroom with scribblings of words the remind me to pray…so I talked in a whisper as I got ready. One thought was running through my mind from a book I have been reading, “Every relational issue is an issue of worship.” Worship. What does this even mean and why do I struggle so much with it? Quietly I began to say to the Lord, “Help me know how to worship you. Give me words and expressions and a heart that turns in the direction of You.” I got into my car and drove in silence, continuing in conversation and prayer…I told Him I am sorry for last night, for sin, for the things I do not even know I do. The truth is, I do not know what is right and wrong, and though it is hard to see the specifics of sin, I want to know how to confess. This was my plea: worship and confession.

So 5 minutes was her request. I made a U-turn and pulled in next to her silver van. She invited me to sit next to her and clearly had something spilling over that she needed to tell me. In a way, she seemed driven and had this sense of urgency about her. Nervous and confused, I waited for her words to uncover the purpose of this 5 minute meeting. Her eyes connected with mine and she spoke, “I recall the last time I saw you, almost two years ago…You have been on my radar. This past week, I simply cannot get you off my mind. I know the Lord wants me to talk to you.” My emotion started to surface and with a firm grip I pushed it back down. Intently, I listened. “I have no idea what is going on in your life, or if this even makes any sense, but I cannot stop thinking about you. I have tried to track down your phone number. I need to show you something…” In the back of the van she pulled out a book thick and spiral bound. A woman has constructed a detailed and Spirit-led book on prayer. I took in every word as she described how it has altered her life and taught her to engage with God. Life has been hard for her recently and she described herself as going through a season of unveiling and brokenness. It was as if she was describing my own recent chapter… “Do you sometimes feel like you do not even know what He is going to do, like you are not even sure what the next step is and you are so thankful that the Spirit prays on your behalf because you literally do not know what to say?” I agreed. I silently agreed, but inside I was about to come undone. “You may think I am just a crazy old woman because I have no idea if what I am saying has anything to do with you.” But she went on to say that this book has taught her how to worship, and given her words when she has none. It also leads her into confession of sin. Worship and confession.

My mind slipped into a thought: “He has sent her to me. He loves me. He is not mad. He cares about me. He just sent me a personal expression of Himself. He has really sent her to me.” I couldn’t fight it. It has been one week since things turned upside down. One week was how long I had been intensely on her heart. Conviction, and at times jolting despair, has been my state this last week. Conviction, and ripping off layers of sin, has forced me to look at myself and see the darkness there. I have feared His weariness and His disgust. Yet she shattered all these tales of darkness and brought in the light.

I began to cry. And it was then that she knew her promptings were supernatural and that all the impressions were in fact true: God had led her; I did need His words and she was His personal agent delivering a purposeful and kind word from Heaven.

I looked at her through my blurry vision, “This is really weird. He has undone me this week. This is so weird.”

Looking directly at me with intention in her eyes she corrected me, “No, Dawn, it’s not weird, it’s His providence…He is pursuing you.”

My heart tightened, as I headed to my office and I wondered if I would be able to focus for my meeting. I knew I had to, but I had just been in a Holy Place and I didn’t want to leave. My mind was racing, my tears were clearing…

5 minutes was all she wanted, I wished I had an hour.