God Stamps Continue

In my last post I talked briefly about the golf event I attended over my and Dana’s anniversary weekend. I wanted to add a little more info and share YET ANOTHER God stamp that occurred that weekend. It wasn’t all just cosmically bad golf.

The organization hosting the event was the National Christian College Athletic Association (NCCAA), a great group that provides national affiliations, tournaments and missions trips for small Christian colleges across the country. This event, which I’ve attended three other times over the years, is a fund raiser for the organization. They bring in PGA pro golfers to play with us amateurs. It’s a great group of folks who I have come to love and appreciate over the years. The director Dan and his wife Kelly are walking forces of encouragement. In fact, I had cleared my InWord speaking slate for the spring/summer, but this event bubbled up in recent months and seemed a good thing to do.

My task at the event was to share the message during the Sunday morning worship service. Of course the only subject material that seemed appropriate to share was to talk out of my and Dana’s journey and to relate the wonderful God stamps that He mercifully graced us with along the way.

That seemed like a doable task.

But the Saturday evening prior to my sharing on Sunday, I was hit with the enormity of what I was planning to share. I had stepped out on our fourth floor balcony to collect my thoughts, which went something like this: Other than the Carepages and this blog, I had yet to share publicly (in “speaking form”) about this journey. I realized there on the balcony that, not only had I not spoken about this journey, I had NEVER spoken about something so personal, something so deep. I also realized that I was sharing my take on some very obvious movements from God—the God stamps (the rainbow and the deer). I was overwhelmed with the thought that I was not up for this task. I even felt a wisp of loneliness, I think because I realized that if anything is to be shared from this journey, I am the one who is to share it. Without Dane. It’s OUR journey, but now….

After actually saying out loud the words “I am not up for this task,” I turned and looked at the fountain below—a fountain I had actually “cursed” a bit because its fountain noise kept us from hearing the God-made ocean noise just a few hundred feet away.

And that’s when I something special in the spray of the fountain. You can see it in the picture at the top of this blog. I grabbed my friend Dave’s camera and snapped this picture, using the last remaining space on his memory card.

It gave me some resolve. And I might add, or you might recall, that the Saturday this happened was our anniversary day. Nice touch, God.

If you’re new to this blog and not sure why a rainbow in a fountain would be so significant, you may want to scroll through the blog archives to February and check out the post “Where is God?”

As you can tell, He is SO with us.

Love to all,
Barry