Finding God Unexpectedly

Life sometimes comes at you unexpectedly.

One minute you're doing one thing, stuck in your routine, moving right along, and then

WHAM!

A big slice of life comes and Murphy whacks you in the face with his heavy book of laws.

Maybe you find out your pregnant

Maybe you lose your job

Maybe your pregnancy doesn't come to fruition

Maybe your sister ends up in the ER

Maybe your other sister barely escapes a tornado

Maybe you just can't find another job

Maybe all these things happen one after another

Or maybe something even worse happens to make you feel 

like you could write the book of Job from the Bible...

Whatever it is in your life, good or bad, it is unexpected and wrinkles your plans.

At this point, when your world is turning upside down and you feel like giving up and doing something crazy like eating a whole box of donuts or jumping off a cliff (with or without a bungee cord) it may seem like God is nowhere to be found and that life is senseless and random.  That your life has no meaning anymore.

So what do you do?

You find God. 

It's not as hard as you think once you open yourself up to it, but it takes quite a bit of listening.  And living in the present moment. (A.K.A. not substituting life with excess anything: food, TV, books, video games, drugs/alcohol, cigarettes, aimlessness, sleeping, etc.)

For example, when I went through my month of trauma I spent the first week sitting on the couch in a stupor, neglecting my chores and watching the DVD series that I always watch for a "feel good" day: "Friends." (Yes, I love that show!)

Did I get anything done?  No.

Did I wallow in my sorrows?  Yes.

The only thing I did do was go outside to play with my dog and water the plants.

I noticed that our mini "greenhouse" was overflowing with green and that the herbs and tomatoes were at the planting point.  So, I went outside and began the hard work of creating a bed for them to put in.  It took most of the evening, but I got it done with enough daylight left to plant the tomatoes.  As I was doing the transfer from greenhouse to ground, I noticed that not all of the planted seeds had grown, and the next day I noticed that of the ones that did grow, not all of them survived the new home in the flower bed.  Gently holding the small first leaves of a withered tomato vine, I realized how fragile life is and that there are so many times when a new life ends before it ever really begins.  Whether a tomato vine or an embryo, life is delicate and all you can do is be grateful for the life you have and try again to create new life.

Then, I was forced to leave the house to take my sister to work.

She only had a few hour shift, and since I had nothing to do (a prospect a workaholic like me finds daunting), I decided to hang around the mall area while waiting for her.  I saw that a bookstore was closing nearby, and since I had some books to look for anyway, I went inside.  Though I didn't find the book I was looking for, I found something even better.  I found God supporting me through the pages of Women, Food, and God by Geneen Roth.

Inside this book dealt with issues I've been dealing with my whole life, and how spirituality can not only help me value myself and re-imagine myself as beautiful (something I doubt constantly) but by being present and aware of my body and myself I can understand my mixed-up relationship with food.  And that this concept can apply to all areas of my life.

God was definitely speaking to me through this unlikely book choice.

After finding this book, I bought it so I could write in it and went to Starbucks for a place to get a drink and sit to read.  While there, completely absorbed in this book with pen in hand to mark it up, this woman around my age came over to me to ask me about this book.

We got into a wonderful conversation about this book and spirituality in general and she ended up giving me her business card with her e-mail on it.  It turns out she owns a business in the area I've seriously been considering but had no idea how to get into it.

I definitely saw God in her small act that meant so much to me.

Later that week when my husband was out of town on a jeep weekend, I decided to attend worship at a church that had somehow put me on their email list despite having not attended in over 2 years.  I knew one person who went there, and there she was, happy to see me and so welcoming.  I hadn't wanted to go that morning, but felt drawn to try it out.  I found God not in the message that morning but in the playing of the song You Never Let Go, a song that had gotten me through that horrible month.

Feeling a little bit better, I got an e-mail from a friend that I had been trying to coordinate a lunch meeting with for a long time.  Things were never quite right and when she had to cancel the last week of my job, I ended up explaining everything that had been going on and why I wasn't going to be up in the area anymore, making a lunch meeting difficult.  We eventually settled on a Monday when I had the time to come up and not only did she treat me to a nice restaurant but generously offered to offset some of our expenses while I look for a job.  She told me that God had blessed her abundantly in her life and "what was life worth without giving back to others out of her abundance?"  I was floored by her generosity and with tears in my eyes accepted her check that she joyously gave.

*               *               *                *

I'm not saying that I've completely made sense of the things that have happened, but through finding God in the little things, the pages of a book, the kind words and gestures of a stranger or friend, or the fragile leaves of a fledgling tomato vine, these experiences are helping me see that life is not senseless or purposeless, but full of unexpected meaning, beauty, wisdom, and love. 

Grace and Peace,

Virginia