Saturday, June 11, 2011

A QUARTER PRAYER

If you read an earlier post from this blog (The Penny Altar – 5/4/11), you know that God and I have a silent language regarding finding loose change on the ground.  It’s been a way for God to communicate His care, love and provision in my life.  Several days ago I went for a run in the morning.  I was doing my normal praying and thinking on the miles.  If I had to rate how I felt that day it wouldn’t have been bad or distraught or even mildly off kilter.  I was just communing with God.  In that communing I was expressing love and gratefulness.  For whatever reason, I asked God to let me find a quarter that day.  There was no thought in my head or heart needing a quarter as a “lucky charm”, a wish to see if God would grant me like a Genie in a Bottle.  No, it was that I knew that God and I had a thing with money on the ground.  I wanted a visual of the love God had for me that day – simply to feel a bit closer, more in step, knowing that His presence was not only there invisibly and powerfully, but tangibly.  I ran and looked down.  Nothing.  I was not disappointed though as I knew God loved me.  Finishing off the day later after coming home from a cookout with friends and a day at the beach, my husband and I went for a walk.  It was that time between dusk and dark.  We walked hand in hand to the end of our neighborhood making the 1.3 mile one way trek in pure delight.  As we neared the 1.3 mile turn around point I looked down and there laid a quarter in the road.  I stopped and tears filled my eyes.  Slowly I picked it up still touched by God’s gift of love in a tangible and obvious way right before the day slipped into darkness.  Not knowing what my husband of 4 ½ months would think of this craziness of me asking God for a quarter, I ventured into the conversation.  He was standing there watching emotion spilling from my eyes as I held the quarter.  I’m not sure he had ever seen anyone get so touched and excited about a coin found.  I began to tell him about my conversation through the years with God regarding finding loose change in the road on walks, runs and bike rides.  I told Doug about the conversation and request I made of God that morning while out running – wanting to find a quarter to feel and see God in a hold-in-my-hand sort of way.  Emotion swelled in me as I said, “God did this for me.  For me. “  This big huge God of creation, creator of humankind, Savior of the world had not only heard me that morning, but knew what my heart wanted and touched it specifically.  He heard and answered my prayer in the swill of billions that he hears daily.  I knew God’s presence was there – He was my shadow.

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