Awe, Angels, and Miracles: I Can't Take It In!

11/21/14

Last night was such a downer. I was realizing that Thanksgiving is just around the corner, and I might leave the table hungry again this year. I don't have the energy to cook my own Thanksgiving dinner, bring it in a Pyrex dish to nuke at the event, and have variety enough for the two-day celebration with extended family. I knew I'd have help, but I was overwhelmed at the complication of it all. My belly hurt immensely. I was inexpressibly sad and angry at this food-centered holiday that would soon exacerbate my mental, emotional, and physical pain. 

But God still loved me and set out to prove it. 

(Side note: please be kind to people with food allergies, illness, eating disorders, or other food problems around the holidays. This can be their most painful time of year. Thank you.)

I don't have the words to relay the emotions that I feel today. Many earthly angels visited, bearing needed gifts, one after another, all day long. 

These angels were friends, neighbors, family, people I knew well, people I didn't know--people who intuitively knew that today of all days I would be needing support and love. Heavenly Father knew I needed reminding that He had felt the ache in my chest as I heaved cries and dripped tears last night. He knew my sadness and frustration. 

It started this morning. My husband took me to an appointment, and my friend, the practitioner, refused to let me pay for treatment. I left with a hug and her encouraging words in my heart, assured and so grateful, yet bewildered that I could ever be deserving of such a gift after last night's feelings of anger and ingratitude. 

This was only the beginning. 

My friend and neighbor asked for our crock pot so she could fill it with safe Paleo food, then return it to us hot and delicious tonight. She also asked to watch our children until dinner was ready so that I could rest from my treatments today. My kids played with her kids and had a blast. 

My long time friend from high school texted me to see if I was home. I told her I was, and she said she would be by in just a few minutes with something for me. She arrived carrying a large box of food. Her children were also there, arms full. They marched a Thanksgiving cornucopia into my kitchen. I was speechless and overwhelmed with the spread of food. There were touching notes attached to many of the items, which I quickly gathered and stapled into a thick book to remind me of this gesture and miracle. They left happy, and I collapsed into a barstool taking it in, weeping. 

I cried and cried and cried. I just can't believe the bounty and the love of the caring and the timeliness of this remarkable miracle. There was so much love before me on the counter. 

About an hour later, some senior, full-time, member support missionaries in charge of six thousand people surprised me on my doorstep with a hot meal, a bundt cake, and a bag of apples. Apples are my candy, and the rest of the food was for my family. What a load off my mind to have a meal ready for my family to enjoy. These missionaries sat down and talked with me for a while. They learned about me and understood the exactness that is required with my food preparation. Their grown daughter has a strictly gluten free kitchen due to celiac. Their caring was tangible, their wisdom was timely; I cry just thinking about it. This was their first time visiting, today of all days. They were inspired, I know it. I was so grateful for that outreach and spontaneous exhibition of Christ-like love from people I hardly know.

Our near-empty fridge was full now. I have no sufficient way to articulate what a blessing this is on so many levels. A mental and financial burden was lifted. Our fridge is full of love and sacrifice from people who cared, and I believe, as an extension of God's care through tuned-in people. I can't take it in, the wonder of this goodness to us. Why us? Why today?

This morning I had been so sad that I had no idea what edifying thing I could write today to my missionary sister serving in the Czech Republic. I was feeling sad about the prospect of Thanksgiving, about my terrible belly pains of two weeks, about being angry. But after being bestowed with so many miracles, I knew what to write. It was a testimony that God knows His children and that He is in the details of our lives.

As I wrote her letter, complete with pictures of this bounty, my kind, Paleo-literate friend sent me a text asking if I would like some of a Paleo treat she had just made. I was so happy to accept her offering. It was so yummy too. 

But I just kept thinking...who arranged for all these varied and far-spread earthly angels to look out for me today? How could all of this happen in a matter of hours? Who choreographed this with such personalized precision? How can I ever thank everyone? How can I ever sufficiently thank Heavenly Father for this?

My mom arrived soon after with a green smoothie for me that my dad picked up. It was such a personalized and kind gesture and just another manifestation of how much God is mindful of me on my hardest days. My parents were so busy today, yet they did this. They did this for their little girl. 

To this point in the afternoon, I hadn't rested much because I was busy receiving! It had been beautiful. I had a couple hours when I could rest now, and I did. I had a little nap, content to know that everything was taken care of and that God was watching over me.

While I was still sleeping, my neighbor friend arrived at my doorstep with the crockpot of pot roast and my happy children. I feel such profound amazement and gratitude. The food was perfect, and my taller half was impressed with how much I ate. He didn't even urge me to have just a few more bites because I ate a third of that pot myself.

We ate as much as we could with all our choices. I don't think anything will make it to the freezer with how excited we are about leftovers. And the groceries that were given--we have so much to be thankful for. It just keeps going. 

My low spirits have lasted the week, and other angels have ministered to me with books and flowers, kind words, prayers and love.

I marvel. I don't have words. I just have tears and tears and tears. I have a warm feeling that my needs are known and the hairs of my head are numbered, that I'm more precious than rubies. So is each of us. 

I don't know how today happened. I don't know the details of my pyrex Thanksgiving yet. But I know God hears our prayers. I didn't ask for any of this to happen today, but maybe you did. Prayer works. Prayer is a gift. And when I'm too frustrated or sad or mentally foggy to pray, sometimes in retrospect I realized this has happened: 

"...the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.

"And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God." (Romans 8:26-27)

Thank Thee Father for answering the prayers I couldn't utter, for anticipating my needs, and for sending a fleet of Thine angels with servants' hearts to bless me all my life...especially today.