I've written about this story twice in separate posts, and so many of you enjoyed it's inspiration that I thought I would add this in the “Inspiration” folder.
At times I've gotten angry with God and blamed God for the bad things that happened when I experience the most agonizing pain. I went through a time where I was going through this anger at God, but reached a place where I finally saw that it wasn't God who had done that to me, but saw that in some small way at first God was trying to get my attention and help me lovingly. 3 years ago I came back up north, where my family lives. I had lost everything. My husband had abandoned my children and I, cleaned out the bank account and ran to Costa Rica with the woman du-jour. I was at my lowest and saw no choice but to sell the baby grand player piano to pay for food and the move back North, where my family was, having nothing after years of being a housewife. My children and I moved in with my elderly parents. I sat on the patio each morning and just cried and cried for months. I was so angry and hurt with God for putting me there, for letting all of this happen to me. Why didn't God protect me from losing “everything?”
I sat at that table on the patio and cried every day. During this time birds started coming and landing in the bushes and trees around where I was sitting each day. Each day I went out and a few more would be there. I would sit and cry, and they would watch. I sat there crying for about a month before the birds started landing around where I sat. Pretty soon squirrels started coming and sitting with the birds. I cried, they all watched. I stared back. After awhile, their attention to me brought my attention away from my sorrow and on them. I stopped all that crying and began wondering why all these birds and squirrels kept coming to watch me. Every morning I went out to sit, they would be there waiting and the ones who weren't already there would see me sit down and come land around the table I sat at. I felt unloved and I didn't notice the birds at first, not until I had a whole "audience!" But they kept coming, more and more each day as I sat there crying. I started bringing bread out with me and throwing pieces to them.
I believe my experience was "heaven sent," and now looking back, I believe it was a gift. God was answering my cries and pain and reaching back through his animals to show me love, but I was so numbed by my own pain that I didn't see it until I had a "CROWD." Those birds and squirrels are still at my patio and have become my family. I have gone out of town and asked my father to go give them some food while I'm gone, and he said they weren't there. Imagine that.
In all my blind hurt and tears, I realized that it wasn't God but my husband's choice that put me in this dark place. God gives each of us gifts; the gift of life and the gift of free will. God does not interfere with our choices (our free will to choose), and doesn't take back the gift of free will. However, when I was so lonely and hurt by others, the God reached out from the other side to bring comfort and love to a breaking spirit. I found that when I was in that place of such deep hurt, I was blind to the fact that I was not alone and God was reaching back to me. But that reach didn't stop just because I didn't notice. I struggled for years to understand why God allowed such pain, until I finally understood the gift of life being offered with the gift of "free will."
So the next time you reach a place in your life that is taking your breath away and has you paralyzed with pain, please remember this and try to start watching. You may not be able to notice right away, because the signs around you may be very small and easy to overlook but keep looking around you, and remember that you are not alone on that patio, in that park or under that tree. You are sharing your pain, and somewhere on the other side a very wise and loving being is trying to hug you and hold you, but you may not realize that at first. Not until you have a whole audience…
