I found myself focusing on the frustrations more than the gifts this last week and found myself beginning to question my own self-worth. I really let myself go, and in a way lost a portion of my faith. Don't get me wrong, I still had unwaivering faith that God exists, but I let myself forget that He does provide for us. So in the midst of my frustration I surrendered up a humble prayer asking for forgiveness for my frustrations and asking for God, if he would, to just show Himself to me in some small way that afternoon.
I prayed this prayer after leaving church, still beating myself up and feeling sorry for myself last Sunday. I prayed this prayer on my way to a store to buy a small gift and get a card for a friend's birthday. I was running late to the party and needed to find something cool and funny, ultimately the card had to be a monkey, because the evite to the party was monkey-themed and the birthday boy was named as the "Party Monkey".
Well after picking up my gift I headed over to the greeting cards and walked through several aisles before getting to the birthday ones:
OK, OK I have to find a monkey card.
Scanning...
Hundreds of cards....
Eyes peeled, monkey, monkey, monkey, where are you?
Scanning...
Ah, there's one.
I open it and read, kind of funny - playing off getting old, but not quite right, as it referenced the droopiness of the aging body...uh no, not quite appropriate for this guy or my relationship to him.
Scanning...
Scanning...
There's got to be another monkey.
fast car,
hot woman,
bunny rabbit,
big green pickle,
birthday cake,
No monkeys...
another hot woman,
dog,
same big green pickle,
old man,
boat,
no monkeys...
weird hat,
another dog,
OK same big green pickle - what's with this damn pickle?!
Pause...
I reach out and take a hold of the big green pickle, the card is literally shaped like a pickle and I open it...
I rattle down through the joke inside, it's a familiar one with a twist.
As I get to the bottom I read,
"(by the way, pickles are the new monkey)"
let me repeat that, pickles ARE the new MONKEY!
Pause...
A warm smile crept over me as I enjoyed not just humor of the card but the humor and love of God who just showed himself to me in a very small way that had a very big impact on my heart at that moment.
This faith stuff, the ways God works, is sometimes so counterintuitive that many times we miss out. Not unlike a small revelation having a big effect on my heart, was the fact that the pickle was the monkey I was looking for. But if I hadn't paused long enough to act on that repeated nudging I felt and just dismissed it as a pickle, which was not the thing I was looking for, I would have totally missed out on the monkey.
As I said before God never ceases to amaze me. I pray that we all, myself included, can keep our eyes and more importantly our hearts open to recognize His nudgings.
Thank you God!
