Lori, are you Listening?

Sunset and Clouds over California Coast

June 2012

Job 37:15-17 (The Message Bible)
"Job, are you listening? Have you noticed all this? Stop in your tracks! Take in God's miracle-wonders! Do you have any idea how God does it all, how he makes bright lightning from dark storms, How he piles up the cumulus clouds— all these miracle-wonders of a perfect Mind?"

Summer heat simmered as the sun lowered in the west tonight. Allie and her friend were at a teen meeting for church, and I was on mommy-duty to pick them up.

As I maneuvered through traffic, I noticed eggplant-colored thunderheads clustering in the west.

Rain! Oh, Lord,  please let it rain!

It's not good for me to be alone, even for a twenty-minute drive, because then I have too much time to think. Thinking can lead to bad places, so it was inevitable my mood soon matched the color of the clouds closing in around me.

I shrieked to empty my soul of pain, and then laughed at my foolishness.

Well, that didn't help! 

I slipped deeper into depression just as I caught a spectacular event out of the corner of my eye. I turned west to witness a brillant silver lining streaming around purple storm clouds.

Sure, God--I know--"Look for the Silver Lining!" Big deal. I don't have one right now! 

Any other time, I would have been impressed by the sheer magnitude of the powerful display, but not now. I was too buried under my thoughts.

Finally I reached my exit. As I eased off the highway, I noticed a formation of clouds separate from the others. Huddled in the midst of purple clouds was a small circle of white.  It looked like a hole.

Yea, Lord--You got it! I have a hole in my heart, and it looks like You have a hole in Your clouds.

Wait!

Is it really 

heart-shaped?

In the western sky, a perfectly formed purple Valentine leaned slightly on its left side. On the right side of the heart was the white circle of clouds.

I had to turn east to get the girls, so the formation moved behind me. I wanted to watch it more closely, but there was nowhere to stop. I finally turned north, where the formation was on my left behind a tree line. I waited impatiently for a break in the trees and got my chance when I stopped at railroad tracks.

White clouds had vanished. In their place, white sunlight streamed through a circular break in the purple, filling the entire sky with blinding light.

The sun seemed poised to leap through the center of the heart.

Ok, Lord, I get it! I have to fill up the hole in my heart with Your light.

I saw the heart one last time as I drove home with the girls. This time, it was smaller, thinner, leaner and broken through the center.

Yes, God. You know I have a broken heart! It's true-- half my heart is missing.

If I had any doubts God was talking to me tonight, they soon evaporated because I watched in utter amazement as the top left half of the broken heart drifted away to form a lower case letter of the alphabet.

In perfect italics, the purple letter was bold against the azure sky.

r

r   for Russell.
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Lord, thank you for meeting me at my level tonight and speaking to my broken heart.  You have reminded me what I need to do to mend it.