You just knew it was from God?

            Numerous times God has spoken to me or given me a delight for encouragement. Oh, not out loud, but in such a way I knew it was Him talking to me.

            I was on my teeth-grinding drive home from Arizona after my second husband decided he didn’t want to be married anymore. I was devastated and yearned to turn back, yet God kept nudging me forward. Finally, the whole western sky was a brilliant orange and I heard plain as day, “I’ve got your back.” That night as I lay in a hard, motel bed, I was sobbing my eyes out and crying out to God, “Why?” “What is so terribly wrong with me?” I felt Him press me into the mattress, covering me with His hands, and I heard, “You are acceptable to me, beloved. You need only worry about what I say.” The next day, my heart was lighter but I was still angry.

            Along about Albuquerque, I was enjoying the sun on the snow. I’m a Southern Magnolia; and we don’t see much snow. It comes only often enough to know what it is when we see it. For miles and miles the pristine snow stretched out on both sides of the Interstate. A thought flashed through my mind.

            Why not bring some of that snow back to sweltering Louisiana? I didn’t have a thermos or ice chest, but I did have a plastic bag, and I decided to stop. At the next exit, I drove down the ramp and pulled to the side of the road.

            Angling from the Northeast, across the road through the ditch and around the maintenance building were some deer tracks. A jack rabbit had hopped right over those tracks. What a find! I scooped up those deer tracks and rabbit tracks into the bag, and tossed it into the seat next to me.

            Back on the road, I chuckled and then laughed out loud. God is so funny. Only God could have directed the timing of those animals and the timing of my arrival to the exact point of intersection on that day at that hour. All I had to do was glance in the seat beside me at that melted snow and I would grin. The lighter mood lasted the rest of the way home.

            I stopped in Amarillo for the night. It was freezing cold and it must have snowed after I laid my head down because I had to scrape a goodly portion of ice and snow from the windshield. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky when I set out early the next morning. The first flush of dawn was just a thought in the back of God’s mind because He had done a spectacular job on the stars. When I hit Wichita Falls and turned south, the sky was His crystal footstool.

            I remembered something about a green flash that happened right at the nanosecond the sun touched the horizon. This phenomenon happens because the atmosphere has a prism effect, or so I had read. Not many people get to see this because conditions must be exactly right. I believe God reminded me of it so I’d watch for it.

            The first rays splashed across that crystal sky so beautiful it took my breath away. I glanced back at the road with a sigh because the green flash had not happened for me that morning. I sipped my coffee and thanked God for the morning. Then the sky, right at the horizon, turned this deep, brilliant emerald green and the color flashed across the sky from east to west. I was stunned. It was one of the most spectacular things I had ever seen and it happened so quickly I could have missed it if I’d blinked.

            I pondered the wonder of that as I drove through Dallas and somehow the stress of other drivers packed around me going 80 miles an hour melted away. God reached down to me to give me a delight to lift my sore heart. That trip was best thing I could have done to start the painful process of healing. It was just me and God on the road. I learned a lot about myself and about God. He absolutely does care deeply about each of us and what happens to us. He’s right there every second, in total control… like with the deer and rabbit tracks.

            I brought those deer tracks home to my Daddy. What a hoot that was!

            “What’s this?” Dad cleared his throat as he peered through the water in the bag.

            “Deer tracks and rabbit tracks,” I tossed at him dragging my suitcase from the back seat.

            “Whaaaa--deer tracks!”

            I told him what I’d done and where I’d scooped up the snow. He started laughing then and chuckled every little while then he told Mom, “I’m bringing that to church tomorrow.” She just laughed, fully aware of the “Top this!” game that he and someone at church were constantly playing. They would each bring something back from a trip... some gag gift or novelty toy and give it to the other just to watch the grins and hear the chuckles from everyone. Whatever it was, it would cause a stir in folks as they tried to figure out what it was.

            On Sunday, after I got my coffee at church, I passed a clump of people peering into that bag of water and one fellow was saying, “Yeah... I think I see it. What was it again?”

            It’s a God thing.

            Blessed are ye who weep now, for ye shall laugh Luke 6:21b