The Golden Umbrella

I grew up listening to my mother talk about the conversations that she had with God. Conversations where she would talk to God and he would talk to her. I always figured that it was a figment of her imagination or a way that she would comfort herself and confirm her beliefs as if to say "God is real because I heard him talking to me." Certainly God wasn't so real and so tangible that we could actually hear him speaking to us. Or was he.

I have actually come to a real crossroads with religion in the last year. I've never been a very religious person. I went to church with my mom as a child and never felt comfortable there. I was frightened by the people being healed and the people speaking in tongues. I didn't find God there. I went through things in my life that I could not explain. Difficult times that didn't feel like the work of God. I looked at my life and I didn't find God there. I went to church with Tim and couldn't take communion because I am divorced. Certainly the kind, loving God that everyone speaks of wouldn't want me to be eternally punished every time I go to church by having to sit by myself while everyone else takes communion. So much for catholicism.

I didn't find God there.

But I did find him.

I was out walking in my neighborhood on the most beautiful day anyone could ever imagine, right at sunset (which my mom has always said was "Jesus's favorite time of day" according to the bible.) I was having a bad day, kind of having a pity party for myself. I was feeling really discouraged and sorry for myself.

I thought about my age - I'm just not as young as I used to be. I thought marriage and how I figured I would be married by this point in my life. And babies...my ex-husband just welcomed a new son into the world and here I am without children. With that clock ticking in the background. And my job, it pays the bills, but it isn't a dream. All of this playing in my head as I walked and looked up to the sky, praying and asking God for peace with all of the distress I was feeling.

And then it hit me...

How much I was taking for granted. How lucky I am.

I heard a voice as clear as day say to me

"Your life is protected and safe. You are under a Golden Umbrella."The Golden Umbrella...

Which keeps my family and I safe and well,

Which lead me from a troubled marriage to a happy life with Tim.

Which has brought friends into my life right when I needed them.

Which made it possible to have a beautiful home and live in a place that is so filled with beauty. Which took me out of a job that would have ended this past Friday in the most miserable job market imaginable. I would have been unemployed right in the thick of it all.

But the golden umbrella covered me from that.

And as I thought of all of the things that I have to be thankful for, I felt ashamed for focusing on all of my life's shortcomings when I have so much to be happy about. I began to smile and look up at the sky.

They say that happiness is where you find it. I think God is also where you find him. At your lowest moment. In the eyes of a new baby or the last breath of someone you love. In a moment where your life is filled with questions and there is only one way to find the answers. And you find God. There. Where you need him most and expect him least.