Speaking of God-stamp Collecting

Over the past few weeks, several folks have shared how, in one way or another, they received a reminder, or an impression, or even a dream about Dana. To me these are all part of the God-stamp collection, those stamps that are continuing to give us assurance of God's presence in this journey. In fact, we may need to do a special blog series documenting all the stamps. Dana’s best friend Pam posted a comment on the blog on January 12 about a special stamp. To make sure we all see it, I’m going to paste it in below; the picture of the “stamp” is at the top of this post. But before I share Pam’s post, I want to take a moment to comment on these stamps.

I’ve mentioned before that I’ve not been one to be a sign seeker, which, to me, is what makes these stamps all the more powerful. And I also know that I am in a heightened state of spiritual and emotional awareness. It could be easy to make a sign out of anything (i.e., “Wow, these two French fries formed a cross; that must mean God’s going to raise Dana from the dead!”). But of all things that others have shared with me, and of all the signs that have ministered to me, there seems to be some near inexplicable element that obviously comes from the Divine.

I’ve been pondering that a bit these past days, and at the same time, reading a great book, The Voice that Calls You Home, given to me by my friend Scott. It was written by Andrea Raynor, someone with whom Scott went to high school. Andre is now a chaplain with hospice, and served as a chaplain at Ground Zero in those frightful days after September 11. Each chapter is an amazing story from her work. In one chapter she tells of driving to the home of a family whose eight-year old daughter was dying. As she drove to the home, a trip she’d made many times in ministering to the family in the weeks prior, she prayed for words of wisdom, comfort, assurance she could bring. She suddenly noticed a perfectly formed cloud in the exact shape of “a little girl in a dress, arms outstretched, legs running, hair flowing behind her.” Was Lila gone? she wondered. The only reason she would put stock in a cloud was that she had had a similar experience as a child, seeing the form of a friend in the clouds one day, and learning that night that the friend had passed away that day. Lila passed away the next morning.

So Andrea is a cloud-seeker. We have rainbows and deer and a growing list of other stamps from God in our journey. Sometimes we may wonder if this is real and valid. Andrea addressed this as she explained why she looked to the clouds:

The impulse to look up whenever I stepped outside was rooted in the expectation that, at any moment, I might receive a greeting from the Beyond in the form of clouds, or waving trees, or the face in the moon. The natural world was very alive—and not only was it mystical but it wanted to communicate its mysteries with whoever was willing to listen. Because of this, I never felt alone. I was being accompanied by a host of spiritual entities who were doing their best to
help me hear and see them.

The spiritual entities—angels, God, the Holy Spirit—are doing their best to help us hear and see them, to help us know that there really is more to existence than what we see, and to help us be assured of God’s presence in this journey.

So here then is Pam’s story, and the explanation behind the picture at the top of this post (Rose and Ed, mentioned below, are Pam’s in-laws, who live in Middletown and were visiting Pam and Doug in Nashville):

On the day after New Year’s day, I was on the deck putting food out for the birds. It was barely snow flurrying and a big snowflake came down right in front of my face and landed on the deck rail. It was so big and beautiful; I could see all the detail of its perfect form. There were lots of other flakes on the rail, but none nearly as big and obviously as perfect as this one. I had the thought, “I wonder if this is God reminding me of Dana’s perfection now.” It stayed for so long that I was able to take a picture of it. I showed it to Rose and all the others at my house, but didn’t mention my “God” thought. When Rose and Ed were leaving the next day Rose cried and said, “God sent us a message about Dana.” I counted that as a God stamp.

By the way, in Pam’s note to me when she sent the picture she mentioned that she wish she had moved the green cord. I’m actually glad it’s there; it gives us all perspective on how HUGE, and thus even more perfect, the snowflake is. And I LOVE Pam's take--a reminder that Dana is in her perfected state, her splendor, her "is."