GOD SENT ME CHEER FROM A BOX IN THE BASEMENT

By Danelle Carvell

                                                                

                                                                

A column I wrote in 1996 came back to me as a message from God at a time when I needed some cheer.

I often ask God for messages and signs to let me know He's there and He cares. Some people would call them Godwinks. A Godwink is an event or personal experience so astonishing that it is seen as a sign of divine intervention, especially when perceived as a prayer. Nonbelievers would say the astonishing experience is a coincidence, but believers have faith that such events are an act of God. 

I keep a journal that's meant for writing down all the ways I hear from God. "Let me see you in this day," is a daily prayer for me. Over the years, I noticed that God uses certain things to encourage me. One of those things is birds. That may sound a little crazy, but God loves to encourage His children, and he finds any way He can to do so.

A few days ago, I was deeply troubled. I went into my bedroom and sat at the window. I needed to clear my head. So I just sat there, looking out across the front yard. Other than the wind pushing dead leaves and swaying trees, no sign of movement caught my eye. Just another dead cold winter day. 

Then after about ten minutes, my front yard suddenly came alive with bird activity. Birds were flying in and out of trees; two cardinals fluttered a streak of red very close to the window; a bird landed on the grass in front of me and stayed there for a while. Those birds were such a joyful sight because I knew who sent them. 

I was visited by a dove this summer on a night when I needed some encouragement. It landed two feet away from my feet and looked directly at me. A dove is a symbol of the Holy Spirit. God winked at me through a bird that symbolizes part of the holy trinity. No part of that is a coincidence

 Broad-winged birds often soar directly above me while I'm driving. By faith, I take all these bird encounters as uplifting reminders that God sees me. I'm not just another person in a world of seven billion. He cares about the things that trouble me and he wants to bring me joy. 

I recently came across a Godwink when I was helping my mom clean her basement. While going through a box of papers, my mother pulled out a copy of a column I wrote while working as a staff writer for the Citizen Standard newspaper. I had a column called, Life Lightly Salted. I was a single mother at the time, so I often wrote about Motherhood and its many challenges. 

The day I came across that column in my mom's basement titled, Many Mothers Missing Life, I was feeling pretty beat up. Beat up by people I had helped that didn't appreciate my help. Beat up by people changing plans and putting me in the back seat. And beat up by people who are just plain rude. I was feeling like a punching bag. And I knew that the best way out of my stupor was to help someone, so I offered to help my mom. 

I'm sharing the column in its entirety at the bottom of this post. But first I want to share why I found it so uplifting to come across that particular piece of writing. The two years I spent as a single mother were the hardest two years of my life. But God was watching over me the entire time. I was offered a job at the newspaper without even applying for it. How does that happen, if not by divine intervention?

As you read the column below, you'll understand why I believe that my finding it was God's way of reminding me that He's right here with me, especially when life gets hard. Coming across that particular column from April of 1996, was a message from Him. And I believe the message is this: 

Danelle, you take a back seat to no one because you're the daughter of a King. Yes, people will abuse you, but they also abused Jesus, so you're walking in blessed footsteps. And when you make sacrifices for others who don't appreciate it, I see those sacrifices, and I will pour out my blessings at just the right moment. 

If you're a busy mother, you might relate to these words I wrote 16 years ago:

                                       MANY MOTHERS MISSING LIFE

As mothers and breadwinners, we overburden ourselves. We sacrifice leisure time to accomplish everything. And in the rush to get it all done, we miss life. 

A mother lives in a state of stress when she goes straight from work to the grocery store, then the laundromat. She has so much on her mind, she doesn't hear the chattering boy behind her. 

He's only talking to himself as he explains the project he made in school. While Mom's busy comparing peanut butter prices, she misses the enthusiasm on her son's face as he talks about the "Super Satellite Dish" he created for invention day. She pretends to hear him. She nods her head and says, "That's great Sweetie." But he knows she's not really listening. 

Mom's in another world again. The world of survival, where everything revolves around time and there's never enough of it.

She finally gets a chance to sit down once the laundry is loaded. Twenty minutes to think about nothing. She stretches across the uncomfortable laundromat chairs and rests her mind and body. 

But her son is full of energy. He wants to go next door for pizza and pinball. "Maybe next week, Sweetie," she whispers. He walks away with his head down and checks the coin machine for unclaimed quarters.

As hard as we try to do it all and do it well, mothers usually have to make sacrifices if they want to accomplish everything in a week. Time for her children is a great sacrifice. 

When a mother rushes through her day, she overlooks all the things that make life special. A calm night rain goes unheard. The evening sky soothes no nerves. And the thoughts of a child are tuned out for more "important" thoughts. 

The sink is stacked. The floor's a mess. It's late. She has no time to sit behind a book with him tonight. Perhaps tomorrow, when there's not so much to do. 

She whispers a promise, steals a kiss, then rushes away.