A Sign To A Woman Who’s Given Up On Signs

A Sign To A Woman Who’s Given Up On Signs

Somewhere between graduating from college and giving birth to my first child, many of my life’s questions were answered, and so I stopped searching the cosmos for signs.

If the light turned green before I had to tap my brake, it meant I was supposed to join the Peace Corps.

If a street name matched the name of someone I liked, it meant we were supposed to get married.

If I saw 11:11 on my cell phone twice in one day, it meant my best friend was going to beat cancer.

I cannot say that I was searching for God’s will for my life by putting out a fleece; moreover, I was searching for confirmation for my own will.

You see, I already had plans; I just needed God to sign off on them.

As I grew older, I began to see the flaw in my thinking.

God, no doubt, does speak to us by using signs. In the book of Daniel, he literally wrote on the wall.

Therefore, I believe it is better to be overly attuned to his still, small voice than to plug our ears like a stubborn child.

However, riddled with fear of making the wrong decision (and, honestly, of losing control), I would put out so many If this happens, then’s that my every movement was stunted . . . stagnated.

And then I married my husband, who is the counter opposite of me in countless ways.

His love of moving—and my despising it—is definitely one of them.

These past few weeks we’ve been preparing for our move to a solar-powered farm in Wisconsin, my husband’s been on a drifter’s high: organizing, trimming down excess, packing boxes and stacking them in our shipping container that’s parked smack-dab next to the carport (you might be a redneck if . . .).

Meanwhile, I’ve been vacillating between euphoria (I am Pioneer Woman, hear me roar!) and paranoia (The only way I’m gonna survive this winter is to triple my weight in cheese curds so I can keep warm!).

The other day, I was gravitating toward this latter exclamatory sentence when I took a walk with my newborn and my toddler.

More often than not, my toddler makes the three-mile trek feel like parental boot camp: Water? Snacks? Bankie? Fowers? Cows? (I’m supposed to produce each of these within seconds or else.)

Before children, these daily walks doubled as my time to contemplate life and pour out my heart to God.

But somehow, that day, I found time to commune with my Creator while also peeling off the wrapper on a granola bar, picking “fowers,” and popping a pacifier back in my newborn baby’s mouth.

My request was simple: God, I want a sign.

Not only a sign that our family was on the right track, but a sign that God was there.

Then I looked down and saw a buckeye—a round dark orb that looks and feels like polished wood.

I have been collecting buckeyes for years, long before I knew there was any superstition involved.

I smiled to myself, hit the brake on the stroller, bent down and retrieved the buckeye. Slipping it into my pocket, I felt like that little nut was God’s way of reaffirming that he did see me, a slightly frazzled nut, taking a long walk on a short leash of patience.

And then, on our lane that I’ve been walking daily for three years, I saw another buckeye. And another. And another. I walked over and crouched slightly, cupping my newborn’s head in the sling.

The ground was positively littered with them.

So I did what any respectable mother of two does when she comes upon a harvest of buckeyes: I got down on my hands and knees and filled the pockets of my jeans. When they became too full, I filled the top of the stroller.

I freed my toddler from her straps, and she helped me. Together, we knelt in the damp grass as the autumn sun set over the mountains and gathered the nuts—a sign to a woman who’d given up on signs that God still answers our smallest requests in abundance.

Does God speak to you through signs? If so, please share!