Silent Awakenings

February is going by so fast. It's nice to see the sun and even though the air is brisk the thought that spring gets closer and closer every day leaves me with hope. I also am feeling better then the last blog even if none of the things I was stressing has really changed. My mother wrote me an email the next morning that really was what I needed. It's not as though she said anything that I didn't already know or that hadn't been said once or twice before. But it reminded me that I am not alone and even your Mother can 'sometimes' say the right thing exactly as you need to hear it, exactly when you need to hear it.
My mother-in-law too wrote me a long and caring email letting me know she also was thinking about me and offered her own wisdom and support. I really appreciate that! Even when the idea of 'always giving things up to God and surrendering my own will' has often been a foreign concept to me, it is still something I'm exploring more and more in my spiritual journey. And is a reminder I needed.
My best friend Tari & I had also been talking about death, the after life and other things along that line recently. Part of the reason I love talking with her is that she doesn't ever judge me when I don't agree or have difficulty with unconditional blind faith. Something that seems to come much more easily to her. Yet she shares her own journey of faith with me and gives it without expectation. It is because of this that I think I am more willing then others in the past who were less tolerant of my questioning and challenging of their own religious ideas. Her husband actually bought she and I both the same book for Valentine's Day! She joked that we were getting too close when her husband buys us BOTH Valentine's presents! It cracked me up but now I realize it was much more then that. He seriously was reaching out to both of us equally to help strengthen our friendship. By giving us both something to share and talk about more concerning this author's own miraculous spiritual journey. I've started reading it and already it's given me much food for thought. I am so lucky to have friends such as they even if we don't spend every waking moment together as often we think best friends should do.
The book does talk about this man's dying and how he was dead for 1-1/2 hours. A semi truck literally drove over him on a narrow bridge and destroyed his car, pinning him inside with NUMEROUS injuries and no pulse. The paramedics waited, tending to others involved, waiting for the coroner's office to pronounce him dead so they could transport him. The journey he took to heave during that time was much like that which is described by many as what it would be like. All your loved ones, friends, etc greeting you, the bright white light, the feeling of being home and the pearly iridescence of heaven's gates. All which when I began reading the book I could easily explain as the reaction of our brain as a coping mechanism. Using whatever scenario of heaven, death and the afterlife was most familiar to us to help us through the trauma. There is only one little glitch. There had been a minister that had also been traveling that same stretch of highway that day. He and his wife were faced to wait in line while the debris was cleared from the bridge so traffic could begin moving again. It would take quite a while though so they got out of their car and walked up toward the accident scene. He said that God had spoken to him. He said that God had told him to pray for the man in the red car. He understood as a minister that praying for the dead wasn't exactly something that made sense and did in fact not make sense to the officers on duty that day. He told himself it didn't matter because this is what God told him to do and he would do it even if he wasn't sure why. He climbed through the back hatch of the twisted metal and placed his hand upon the dead man's shoulder. He was badly mangled and bleeding. His legs crushed and nearly severed. His arm hanging on only by a thread to his body. The minister had felt for a pulse himself and indeed there had not been one. Yet he began to pray. Deeply, emotionally, specifically asking for this inner organs and brain to be healed and intact. This too he said God told him to do. He broke down a couple of times and began singing hymns between prayers. As he was singing 'Walk with Jesus' the dead man chimed in quietly. Miraculous and weak but alive! And this was only the beginning of his struggle back but he really was dead and he really shouldn't have survived considering his injuries. But God's will was for him to live. And it was God's will for this minister to pray for him. And because of this calling the minister listened and God responded. I cannot explain that in the least. God spoke. Plain and simple. That minister had no other reason to stop and pray when he was obviously dead. Nor could it be explained otherwise. God compelled him to become involved. And those two random things suddenly point to my believing. I know to some it sounds silly. Especially to those that much more easily have blind faith. But recently I'd asked God to give me definitive proof we were not just following a dream and those Christians would one day realize sadly it was all just that. A dream. Hell it could even have been something alien forces outside our universe concocted for us pathetic humans only to realize upon death we were instead met by foreign beings of greater intelligence. But not God. I think God instead answered my prayer. And I will continue to quietly and privately develop my own understanding of my relationship with him, Jesus Christ and how the Holy Spirit works in my life. And how I can be of service to them all. And I've not even finished the book yet!!