April 19, 2010
After spending 6 hours working at my computer, I decided to take a break and enjoy some of the warm sunny spring weather by taking my dogs out for a walk. While I am out walking the dogs I always see pigeons searching for spilled grain on the train tracks. As I continued to walk I noticed one pigeon in particular who looked quite different from any pigeon I had ever seen before. This pigeon was not the traditional grey color. This pigeon was golden brown and white in color.
I walked as closely I possibly could, pulled my cell phone out of my pocket and tried to figure out how to work the camera in my phone. I began to take some pictures of this rare-looking pigeon. I captured a few images and then continued my walk. As I was walking away I thought to myself "what a beautiful unique pigeon." Immediately after I thought that, I heard the Holy Spirit say to me "Just as you think that is a beautiful unique pigeon, I think you are my beautiful unique girl."
I can't tell you how awesome it made me feel to hear those words coming from my "Daddy," which is what I now like to call him after reading "The Shack" by William Paul Young. I found myself smiling and saying, "Aw, thank you daddy."
Do you ever hear from God? Are wondering how it is that I hear from God in this way? Would you like to be able to hear from Him? He speaks to me in several different ways. Sometimes He speaks to me through His word, sometimes through dreams, sometimes through a Christian book I am reading, sometimes through people and sometimes it is the still small voice of the Holy Spirit that speaks to me.
I have found that the better I get to know my "daddy" in a personal way, the more I am able to hear from Him by any of the abovementioned methods. I also know that before I made the choice to put Him first in my life and actively pursue a relationship with him, I never heard from Him in those ways. It wasn't because He didn't want to communicate with me, it was because He left the choice to me to seek Him out for myself or leave Him out of my life. As soon as I started choosing Him, I started hearing from Him.
I saw this unique pigeon while walking my dogs at the beginning of the week, Monday, April 19. I really enjoyed hearing from God in this way and a week later I realized why He spoke those words of love to me that day. He knew how terribly my week was going to end and He gave me something to remember while going through it.
On Saturday, April 24, my dog Sandy that I have shared almost 12 years of my life with passed away. On Saturday afternoon I could tell she was in distress. After several tests and hours later at the vet clinic, her diagnosis was not good and I had to make the most painful choice in love by ending her suffering and letting her go. Losing her is like losing a member of my family and it is extremely painful.
It is only now as I move through this grief that only a person who has loved and lost a pet can understand that I realize why God spoke those words of comfort to me when he did earlier that week. I have been recalling those words of comfort often and it has strengthened me.
I also ended up accidentally taking a picture of my dog Sandy while we were walking that day that I saw the pigeon. I was trying to figure out how to work the camera in my phone and I had accidently taken a picture and she is in it. Little did I know it would be my last week with my beautiful Sandy and one of the last walks we shared together.
I am dedicating this blog post in loving memory of my beautiful dog Sandy.
