God Moments

A neighbor was telling me about what she calls her "God stories"--miraculous things that happen to her--and how her grandson urged her to write them down. I often have "God moments" too, and her grandson is right--if you don't write them down, you tend to forget them.

I had such a moment on March 1st. On the cover of the March issue of RBI's "Our Daily Bread," is a photo of magnificent pink azaleas blooming in Maymont Park in Richmond, Virginia. And the Bible verse below the picture reads: "For lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth." Song of Solomon 2:11-12.

My reaction was, "Yeah, right!" We had plenty of snow still on the ground here and I hadn't seen a flower since last fall sometime. The sun was shining here, at least between the clouds, but flowers? You've got to be kidding.

I assume the photo was taken last year, because this is, after all, March, and I don't think that even in Virginia it would be warm enough for azaleas to have bloomed early enough to get on a magazine cover. It certainly isn't in New York State!

Later in the morning I was out back and I spotted something purple by the back door.

A tiny myrtle flower! Blooming among the green leaves and the twig and dead leaf litter of winter was my first flower of spring.

It doesn't qualify as a miracle, except by people like me, who feel that life is full of miracles--composed of miracles--most of them so small we don't even recognize them, but miracles all the same. It was definitely a "God moment."

WILLOW TREE
Well, the neighbors' enormous one hundred foot willow tree finally came down. In our yard. Naturally. The whole darn thing. Broke right off at ground level. I tried to get a tree service to take it, or parts of it, down years ago, but they wouldn't, even though it was hanging over our shed. Willows are nasty to cut and very dangerous for tree cutters. Previous neighbors planted it years ago, but the trunk had grown in our direction, making it a "line tree." I was willing to pay half to get it down since we were the ones in danger, even though I felt it was their tree and not a line tree at all, but the new neighbors always wanted to keep the tree. And I admit that taking the branches down which overhung our yard would have taken ALL the branches off. So it stood. Leaning.

Well, folks, in the Divine miracle department the whole tree--all of it--fell neatly along between our fence and right along the side of the shed. It fills the entire space of about 25 feet in width between the fence and the shed and from the back of the yard to the front of the 70-foot long shed. Neatly. I still can't believe it. Twigs grazed the side of the shed and chipped the edge of one shingle that protruded. Didn't scratch the shed or break any windows. And left a VERY narrow path right along the side of the shed that I can walk along ducking under leafy twigs and stepping on and over broken bits of tree.

If that thing had come down on the shed, it would have crushed it completely.

It missed both of my little Bradford pears except to trim off the side branch of the one pear that had two tops and I've been trying to figure out how I was going to prune off that second top, since I don't do ladders very well. Sheered it right off at the pear's trunk. I think the lilacs along the side of the shed may be toast, but they can be replaced. And if I ever get someone to clean up the mess, I may be surprised at what survived. Lilacs are tough.

At the moment, I'm considering just fighting the poison ivy (the willow was full of it) and ignoring it. Poison ivy spray is cheaper than hiring someone to clean it up.

The tree was loaded with poison ivy that I've been fighting for years with spray since it overhung our yard and dropped berries continually which made a carpet of poison ivy in our yard. A couple of years ago I crossed our fence and cut the vine with clippers since the neighbors wouldn't do anything. One of the vines was four inches in diameter, and another was six! I had to saw them, and I was afraid they'd heal so I sawed chunks out of the vines to prevent that. But they sprout continuously, so if I don't fight it, the whole side yard will be poison ivy.

It always made me nervous even to walk past that tree in a wind. We've had a lot of its limbs come down, but the big ones always landed neatly in a line along the fence even though they weren't pointing that way while they were up in the tree, and I always considered that to be a miracle, but I never ever expected the tree to fall like it did, diagonally at that precise angle. What the tree service refused to do--especially when I whined about my Bradford pears, which they said they wouldn't be able to protect--God did very neatly! Thank you, Lord!

And hey, I don't have to mow that section of yard anymore!

IN THE SILENCE

"God bless you!" we say if someone sneezes or if they are going through hard times, and even more especially when they have done something wonderful for us--something mere "thank you" won’t begin to cover.

"Bless the Lord," the Psalms command us. And God has done more for us than any of us could imagine. But how can we say "God bless you" to God? Can we bless God? How could we? Can the lesser ever bless the greater?

Perhaps by praise. "Praise You, Lord. I thank You and praise You." How else? How does a field of flowers bless me? By being their own beautiful selves. By being the thing they were meant to be and doing their best. Well? What am I waiting for?

{From A Journal of the Spirit, a Journey of the Soul, by D.C. Ice, Jan. 28, 1995.}