I've experienced a lot of changes in my faith since then. I've come to understand God in a different light and, with my husband's help I have come to know those little messages that I used to refer to as intuition as the voice of God, the Holy Spirit. I have learned to pray for guidance and wisdom when I need it, which is often. I have learned to take my fears and concerns to Him and find peace in the blessed assurance that he will speak to me when the time is right, which usually means when I am ready to listen. This story is about how I learned to receive God's guidance and allow His presence in my everyday life.
Though I didn't know it at the time, this story goes all the way back to my junior high years. My husband, Lewis, and I knew each other as kids and have always had a fondness for each other no matter how many miles separated us over the years. In fact, our first puppy love romance took place around the bonfire at church camp. He'd wait for me by the dinner bell to walk with me to Vesper services. Thirty-some years later, we found the kind of love in each other that we had longed for all our lives, wondering if it really existed but slowly losing hope we would ever find it. In the face of all the happiness we now share, our only sorrow is that we didn't recognize it earlier, that we weren't able to escape all the unhappiness of the years in between. Knowing that we were so young, each with our own wounds, helps only a little.
When we first came together, we talked about this a lot; about how we'd always watched each other through high school looking for signs to reassure us the other was okay. We recalled the times we'd run into each other over the years, standing and talking, the air so thick between us you could cut it with a knife. During one of those conversations, I asked him, "What was that? What was that 'thing' that always seemed to hang in the air between us so long ago?" No sooner had the question been asked than the answer came out of my mouth in words that weren't really mine: "This is the one I have chosen for you, my children, when you are ready." What we'd been sensing all along was the love we had waiting for us.
We went back to our old church camp to be married in a sunset service on Vesper Hill. It was a simple service with just our family, the stone altar in front of wood benches that looked out on a wooden cross and the Arcadia Valley. We spent the night right there at the camp in one of the cottages. Set up for the counselors, it was rustic to say the least and with nothing but twin beds to choose from, we ended up tossing mattresses on the floor and curled up to savor the evening. Just as we turned out the light, a huge, bright green Luna moth perched onto the window screen.
As beautiful as it was, I’m not a big fan of bugs of any kind. It was pitch black in the cottage and a mere touch of my hair evoked exactly the kind of scurry and scream that Lewis, my new prankster-husband, was hoping for. So the next time we ran into our pastor, Lewis relished telling him the story of the Luna moth and my temporary visit to the ceiling of the cottage. Being a mischievous sort himself, our pastor chuckled at the picture Lewis painted for him and went on to tell us that a visit from a Luna moth is thought to be a sign of blessing.
We consider ourselves very lucky to have a business that we can work together in but from the very beginning, I’ve talked about writing a book about my healing experience. I’ve always hoped it would give me the opportunity to get out and speak to other women like myself so I could offer them some hope and encouragement for their own healing process. We’d only been married a year when we started talking really seriously about how to make that happen. As luck, or God, would have it, just as we were making plans, another business opportunity came our way. We knew we would have to decide on one project or another. The time commitment would be too great and we still had our real estate business to keep going. We decided to pray about this new business venture, a process that was still foreign to me. The answer came to me one morning while I was getting ready for work. It was, “Do this now. I’ll make the other happen when the time is right.”
So we proceeded as directed and the second business went well enough but for the next couple of years my dream of working with survivors of childhood sexual abuse was never far from my mind. Then several months ago when the scandals arose regarding sexual abuse in the church, the soft voice seemed to be saying, "Now would be a good time for you to get your message out." I knew that the message I wanted to get across was entirely focused on the healing process and I wondered how many people were out there who could benefit from what I'd learned and experienced. Several days after that I was taking a bath (God knows He can always get my attention when I’m in the tub) when I heard the message again, only this time it sounded more like "NOW WOULD BE A GOOD TIME!"
I talked to Lewis and he encouraged me to move forward. He was willing to do whatever I needed him to do, including taking over my share at the office, to make this happen. Still, to be entirely truthful, I dreaded the thought of going through the process of trying to get my book published and I didn't have the time or money to self-publish. Again, I prayed, only this time my prayer was, “Tell me how. I don’t know how to make this happen.”
Shortly after that, my mother-in-law, who loves to share inspirational and motivational materials, passed along an ad she'd received from one of the companies that sells audiotapes. This one was about how to generate multiple streams of income. It didn't catch my attention, but Lewis read through it and came across a blurb about a guy who was selling books over the Internet. He did a little research on his own and found books of all sizes and all subjects being sold on-line. There was the "how" we were looking for!
I immediately got busy putting finishing touches on the book and Lewis undertook the technical aspects of web publishing. As I was thinking about what I wanted on the new website, it occurred to me (I wonder where that idea came from!) to include a picture of a Luna moth and tell the story of how I've learned to live my life in communication with God. Lewis found lots of pictures of Luna moths but, for obvious reasons, they were all very dark. We found illustrations of every kind of butterfly under the sun but no Luna moths.
By now we were into the heat of the real estate season so our progress was slow but steady. Then my son had an accident playing slow-pitch softball and needed surgery to fix six fractures in his face. Thankfully, it wasn't serious and he recovered quickly but it brought my progress to a halt. I began to feel distanced from the project and began to question whether or not the anointing I'd felt was genuine or just wishful thinking. I asked God to speak to me; to help me put my mind at ease and then went back to getting ready to go to my husband's family's farm for a restful Memorial Day weekend.
I started to pack some projects to take with me but instead I decided to go to the library and find a good book to curl up with. The book I had in mind wasn't in but so many people I know had enjoyed it so much that I decided to try something by the same author. I reached for a title that sounded interesting, checked it out and went home. Later that evening, I couldn't resist starting the weekend early so I sat down with my book, opened it up to start reading and inside the front cover were graphics of butterflies of all kinds and one Luna moth!
The next day we headed out for the farm as soon as we could finish some details at the office. We have a favorite spot that marks our "officially out of the city" point where we always stop to fill up on gas and cappuccino for the rest of the drive. Our unspoken rule is that from that point on, there's no more talk about the office. We pulled in and Lewis hopped out to pump gas and almost immediately stuck his head back in the car with a huge grin on his face. "Honey, look what I found," and he unfolded his cupped hands to reveal a beautiful bright green Luna moth! Our otherwise nocturnal messenger had been perched on the top of the gas pump in broad daylight waiting for us.
Adult Luna moths have very short life spans so we took it over to a grassy patch and set it down in the shade. No sooner did we release it than it took off in flight so high we lost sight of it.
God speaks to us in countless ways but we hear only when we are ready and willing to listen.
Introduction to
"The Journey Home"