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Red Flowers and Strength
She was visiting her friend in the hospital as the beautiful red vase of cut flowers from the church secretary arrived. Moments later the friend was to be taken for an emergency surgery and then to ICU, where no flowers could follow. As hospital transport stood waiting to take her friend, the friend was sending an email about getting the flowers to the church so the secretary could enjoy them.
When her friend was stable following that surgery, she gathered the flowers, but delivery was not made because of church office hours. The secretary called the following day saying she should keep and enjoy the flowers rather than worrying about getting them to the church. The arrangement still looked beautiful when her friend was back in a room where she could have them, so she was taken them back to her friend.
She got onto the elevator with two hospital staff. The woman said, “Those flowers are beautiful.”
“Bringing flowers to a friend?” the man asked.
“Well, actually I am bringing them BACK to my friend,” she said. “They were delivered a couple of days ago just as my friend was being taken to ICU where she could not have them. She is back on the 4th floor now.”
As the elevator door opened to let the man and woman off at the 3rd floor, the man turned and looked at her, “I hope your friend has a very good day today.” As the door closed — touched deeply by his caring comment — a few tears formed just behind her eyes. Her friend has been through so much, and the latest was a collapsed lung, complication from the insertion of a pacemaker.
When the pulmonologist entered her friend’s room a bit later the woman and man from the elevator were part of her friend’s “lung team.”
And it was the man from the elevator who came to tell them the team had been successful inserting a chest tube to reinflate her friend’s lung. As they walked together out of the waiting room the man said, “Your friend is strong. She is going to get through this just like she has gotten through everything else she has been through.”
The symbolism of red flowers is said to include passion, love, desire, romance, beauty, respect, admiration, courage, and STRENGTH….
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The Coupon Queen
It was the first Easter after his mother had passed. He was wondering how he was going to make it through Easter without her. On the week leading up to that first Easter without his mother, he was in the grocery store on a very long check out line. Someone tapped him on the shoulder. He turned around and it was an elderly woman handing him a coupon as she said to him, “Young man, I noticed the cereal you are buying. I have a coupon for it.”
No one had ever done that for him in all of his years of grocery shopping. And when he reached out to get the coupon from her, he looked into her eyes. He really felt like his mother was present. The woman did not look like his mother, but he felt his mother’s presence. It was so real, so palpable, so undeniable….
His mother was a child of Italian immigrants from the Great Depression, so she really loved saving money. Every Sunday she would take the newspaper and she would cut all of the coupons. She would even cut coupons for items she herself did not buy. She would leave them on the grocery store shelves next to the items for other people to find and to use.
His mother was not a reader, she did not do puzzles, she did not knit. What his mother did for fun was cut coupons. She was the coupon queen!
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Red-Shouldered Hawk – A Close Encounter
On Sunday, she received this wonderful blessing from a spiritual teacher who goes by the name Mother.
I am with you and I will climb on the back of your bike and enjoy the outings with you. If you go past something that catches your eye, just tap me on the shoulder and say to me, “Mother, did you see that?”
Or I’ll tap you on the shoulder and say, “Did you see this???”
Monday morning she was out riding her bike when she saw a Red-shouldered Hawk on a power line. Hawks are often skittish, appearing to be almost “camera” shy. Speaking to the hawk, she stopped her bike and began slowly walking closer. The hawk watched her as she took some photos and then flew up, landing in the yard across the street. Still speaking softly to the bird, she was able to stand within about three feet! She was even able to get a video of some ground behavior she had never seen before. An online search said this seems to be a hawk hunting technique: rooting around the dry grass like a chicken.
When the hawk flew to the edge of the garage, she stood directly below as the hawk looked down, making direct eye contact.
She felt the Mother’s energy and imagined her saying, “Did you see this!!!”
It is thought that hawks represent focus, clarity, determination, and intelligence.
“Thank you, Hawk, and thank you, Mother,” she breathed.
Hawks symbolize spiritual awareness because these are all traits you need to be more spiritually aware.
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Help Buying a New Van
She and her husband had the sense they were to explore trading in their car for a new one. Their sense about this grew stronger the more they laughed about how silly it was to think about a new car since theirs was only a year old. And, further, they had just had a hitch installed on their car before traveling to Florida for the winter so they could bring their bicycles. How would they possibly get a hitch installed on a new car in just a couple days? None of it seemed feasible! Yet for several days they felt as though several close family members, no longer in body, were sending them messages in dreams that it was important to explore doing this.
The final message came from her mother who had died several years earlier. When she was in body she often exclaimed, “This will be fun, fun, fun, or great, great, great!” Her presence in the dream was one of this enthusiasm. In the dream, her mother told her, “Just wait until you hear the name of the person who waits on you at the car dealership!” So, off they went to the car dealership in Florida, 3 days before they were to leave to travel back to their home in the north. They had learned to trust the messages that find a way to get through to them from their loved ones on the other side, yet they felt a bit skeptical and even a bit ridiculous, trading in a car that only had 17,000 miles on it!
When they walked into the dealership and asked to talk to a salesperson, they were introduced to Liam. One of her mother’s great grandson’s was named Liam. When he was born, her mother thought it was a unique and fun name and told all of her friends at the retirement community where she lived how excited she was with having a new grandson with the name Liam! She thought it was a “great, great, great name!”
She and her husband enjoyed getting to know their sales person, Liam, and found him to be very friendly and helpful. He was able to get them exactly what they wanted and most importantly, was able to make the numbers work out so it was feasible, and, the car came with a hitch!
Liam is a boy’s given name of Irish origin. It is a diminutive of the British name William, meaning “helmet of will” or “protection.” She and her husband looked at each other with amazement and knew they had an army of angels helping them!
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Hallelujah!
Her friend, still hospitalized with complications following back surgery two weeks ago, was very much on her mind as she was getting out of her car to run into Dollar Tree. The song Hallelujah was being played in the parking lot. She had just texted the K.D. Lang version to her friend a couple of days earlier. Exiting Dollar Tree she realized that the beautiful music was not being piped into the parking lot — at the far side of the parking lot she could see a man playing a saxophone!
She walked to Winn-Dixie at the opposite end of the strip mall, appreciating the music so much. As she was about to enter the store she stopped to speak to two women who were also hearing the music and trying to figure out where it was coming from. The younger woman was in a wheel chair. I gushed, “It is live music! You can see the guy way over there playing the horn. When I first got out of my car he was playing Hallelujah. I had just sent that song to my friend, Linda, who is in the hospital with complications following back surgery.”
The older woman pushing the wheel chair said, “My name is Linda!”
The younger woman in the wheel chair added, “My mother’s name in Linda!”
We all felt something so holy…. They said in unison, “We will be praying for your friend, Linda.”
When I got back in my car I drove to the far side of the parking lot where the man was playing. Rolling down my window and thanking him for the surprise of the beautiful music playing, I told him about having heard him playing Hallelujah, and about Linda. He said he would pray for Linda.
He had a tip jar so I pulled a ten-dollar-bill out and handed it to him. As an after thought, I asked if I could take his photo. He grabbed his saxophone and posed!
Earlier that morning when I had sent a text to my daughter updating her about Linda, my daughter texted back this beautiful prayer:Lord, there are times in our lives we do t even know what to pray for, but we know that you know our hearts. So for our sweet friend, Linda, we ask for healing and the absence of fear. For Fred and her friends we ask for peace, comfort, and for all we ask for hope. We beg for understanding as we struggle to surrender to your will. Comfort us dear Lord. We ask these things in the name of Jesus. Amen.
Looking at the photo later I read the minstrel’s sign: PLEASE HELP ME. I HAVE 3 KIDS. I DON’T HAVE MONEY FOR FOOD AND RENT. GOD BLESS YOU.
And, I noticed his hat: FBI JESUS. Expanding the photo more, beneath the FBI in small print I read FIRM BELIEVER IN.
Hallelujah!
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Marquette
Her sister and brother-in-love had been planning a move from their hometown to the upper peninsula of Michigan, where their youngest grandchildren were. She wanted her sister to be where she needed to be, but to be honest, in her heart a move to Marquette for them felt like loss. Significant relief came when they had decided to stay in the area, but sell their current home and move into something else.
“We just found a duplex to rent. It has a basement!” her sister’s text read. “What a story to tell. Call me when you can.”
They were in the car driving to a jam session so she she called her sister right then.
The duplex was on Marquette Woods Road, very near her! And close to everything…. She heard her brother-in-law say in the background, “We thought we were going to be moving to Marquette, and I guess in a way we are!”
Directly across from her at the jam session was a musician wearing a hat with one word on it: Marquette.
“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” ~ Jeremiah 29:11
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Missing Ear Bud
Finishing her meditation, she popped her wireless ear buds into the charger case, snapped the lid closed, and set it on the bedside table until she got up and plugged it into her computer. Late that evening as she was readying for bed, she put the charger case back on the bedside table so it would be ready for her meditation.
The following morning the one for the right ear was missing!
She searched on the bed, under the bed, under the bedside table…. but did not find it. Later that morning, she recruited the assistance of one of the friends she was visiting. They took the bed linens off, even removing the pillows from their cases. Her friend intoned: “Saint Anthony, Saint Anthony, please come around. Something is lost that needs to be found.”
“What might the lesson or gift be?” her friend asked.
“That I should only use the left ear bud?” she mused. The left ear is connected to the right brain, so that made some sense.
The ear bud for the right ear remained missing. In their fastidious searching they did find a domino behind the bed side table. It was an eight and a six: 14. They looked up the spiritual meaning of 14 only to discover the same message they had been speaking about a few minutes earlier.
A bit later their other friend also searched for the missing ear bud without finding it. When her friend who had helped with the earlier search asked her exactly where was she and what was the exact sequence of her actions she hopped up on her bed and provided a play-by-play reenactment, including testing what might have happened if the case lid had not been closed tightly. She could not even shake the ear bud out of the case! Could the missing ear bud have not made it into the case?
Her friend stretched out on the floor between the two beds. From that eye-level view, she saw what she thought was another shred of dryer sheet. She had picked one up in her previous search but as she ran her hand under the bed she came out with the missing ear bud!
This information about processing our listening with only one ear comes from the internet: Depending on which ear you receive the input from, the information will be processed a bit differently, but the general structure will be the same, and obviously, the end result will be the same. Information from your right ear is initially processed by your left hemisphere, and information from your left ear is initially processed by your right hemisphere. The right side controls attention, memory, reasoning, and problem solving.
She thanks the divine forces and says she will do her meditation without the missing ear bud for a while!
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Two Male Cardinals
She and her husband did a ridge hike close to Tucson, Arizona while they were wintering in the Western United States from their home in Western Canada. Her husband doesn’t do heights very well, and he leaned over to one side for many hours as they tackled their big hike.
Eventually, they got to their designation at 3 in the afternoon and found a picnic table to enjoy a very late lunch. Out of nowhere two red male Cardinals showed up and hung around very close by to them. They were thrilled and thought of it as a sacred gift.
(photo credit Tammi Mild)Some time later, they had the good fortune to join a birding festival at Salton Sea in California. The person who kindly took them around to the various places was an avid birder and very knowledgeable.
They somehow relayed their experience with their hike and the two male Cardinals. He looked at them a bit oddly before saying, “Cardinals are never seen in that area! That so I unusual….”
Later she told her husband she thought it was so wonderful his angels, or God or whoever, chose to show such compassion to him and gift him with these bird sightings right beside them.
They weren’t sure who might have shown up for her husband, but their own has joined so many other amazing stories about birds related to visits from departed loved ones.
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Flowers from Friends
After several years of leaving her own home and traveling to a nearby state to provide support — and then care — for her centenarian father, he had recently passed and now now she was executor of his estate.
She writes: “I had just opened the day’s mail which brought a flood of medical bills and estate paperwork when the doorbell rang. What a delight to have this beautiful bouquet arrive in that moment from friends in Massachusetts! Life has its pleasant surprises, often perfectly timed.”
Some friends play at friendship but a true friend sticks closer than one’s nearest kin. (Proverbs 18:24)
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God’s Message in My Boot!
(Reposted from Facebook with permission from Shana.)
During my prayer time this morning, I prayed about a situation I was wrestling to get my mind around. The situation wasn’t news to God. I am pretty sure God was probably like, “Yes, Shana, I get it; we’ve talked about this before.”
Then, as I was getting dressed for work, I grabbed a pair of boots that I have worn at least a couple of times this season, and a piece of paper fell out. It was a fortune from a fortune cookie. I’m not sure how long that piece of paper was in my boot nor how it got there, but it was a message I needed to hear.
“Develop some flexibility in your point of view.”
Well played, God, well played.
