I heard a broadcast today on Christian radio that sparked a memory I want to share. The focus of the interview was that God is willing and wanting to engage with us in the little details of our day as well as the major callings on our life. The speaker told of a phone call that came in the middle of the night which he almost didn’t respond to but ended up leading someone to Christ less than an hour before he died. He also told of someone else’s experience where a woman felt like God was nudging her to go to a specific place and when she went there she felt prompted to approach a woman who was sitting alone at a table. She walked up to the woman and said God was telling her to say, “hi”, and the woman replied that she had just prayed for God to send someone to her to talk because she had recently lost her husband and was feeling terribly lost and lonely.

As I listened I was reminded of a season in my life when I stayed in tune on a daily basis listening for God’s promptings and blindly obeying them. One time I was driving home from a church service, praying while I drove as usual; when I felt like God was guiding my hands to turn the steering wheel this way, then that. I was on an adventure. I had no idea where God was taking me, but I was sharply tuned in to obeying His promptings. I ended up parked in front of a craft store; and then felt prompted to go inside. I browsed while I continued to pray that God would show me why He brought me to this store, and the very moment my eyes rested on the display I knew immediately that was what I was there to purchase. They were packages of real butterfly wings held together with paper “bodies”. They were the exact thing I needed for making my wedding announcements, and I didn’t even know they existed until I saw them. It was a small way that God was saying to me that He was interested in even the details of the things that concerned me.

It’s been a long time since I thought of that experience. I have never put the experiences together in this way before; but today as I was listening to the broadcast and remembering God’s caring about even the small details of my life, it struck me that I had no way of knowing at that time how important it was going to be after the wedding that I remember God’s provisions for the details of our wedding. The butterflies were not the only things relating to my life at those times that were subtle Holy nudges that God was directing the plans and preparations for our marriage. After the wedding I was going to be devastated and wonder whether or not I made a grave mistake when I married my first husband. I would need these subtle reminders that God was in on the plans and preparations – that this marriage, doomed to fail, was an important part of God’s plans for our life.

There is a woman who I only know through an on-line community who right now is in the middle of a turbulent storm in which she is questioning what God is doing in her life. My heart is aching for her – I can quickly get in touch with times in our past when we also had those questions during very turbulent times. Those of you who are Christians, I ask you to pray for her and her loved ones – God will know exactly who you are praying for even if you can’t use her name.