Day 1271- Is It A Sign?

Yesterday, a mother wrote into one of the groups I run telling us about a sign she had gotten from her daughter. She was having a bad day, triggered by a memory of her daughter, and needed a fix of fast food to comfort herself. She pulled into her favorite fast food restaurant. When she goes to this restaurant, she doesn’t go inside. She does the drive-through. She pulled up the drive through and it was shut down. After the day she was having, triggered by memories of her daughter, she really didn’t want to go inside. But, she went inside. When she got inside, she saw a young man carrying a cellphone with a pink case. The very pink case her daughter had on her cellphone.  It, of course, made her immediately think of her daughter. But, she could not trust it was a sign. She came to our group and posted to ask. “Is this a sign?”. 

Ponder this. After the trigger that set her off, something made her think to go to her favorite fast food restaurant on the day the drive through happened to be shut down. At the time she got to the restaurant, this young man shows up with a phone, pulls it out, and it has a pink case.  It’s a pink case with flowers and owls on it. What are the odds? It sounds like an unusual case to me. And a boy was carrying it. For all of us it was obvious it was a sign. She knew it was a sign. Yet, she questioned.  We want signs. But, when we get them we try to rationalize them away.

I am as guilty of this as anyone. There is a house at the end of a cul-de-sac I walk twice a day every day. The house has two lights on the garage. One of the lights flickers off an on periodically. Mostly it’s on. But, sometimes, just as I’m coming up the hill to the house, it will turn off and turn back on. It doesn’t happen every day. I wondered if this was a sign. Then, I started trying to figure it out. “Is the light bulb going out?” Well, if it is, it’s been going out for weeks; and some days it’s on steady. “Are the lights on a sensor? I walk a lot of times just as the sun is coming up. Maybe it’s that in-between time that’s causing the sensor to think it’s dark/it’s light/it’s dark.” Well, it’s not always right at dawn when I walk and it’s consistently only one light that does this. It’s only the light on the right side. Finally, I’ve decided to take it as a sign and I say “Thank you, Shayna.” when it happens. I tell my story to the mother to help her have confidence in her sign. 

This morning as I turn to make the climb up the hill to the house, I look up and the light is shining brightly, no signs of flickering. It’s about a minute walk from the time I make the turn until I reach the top of the hill where the house is. My eye is on the light the entire time. It looks like it’s not going to go out today.  Just as I’m cresting the hill, I look at the light and I say “Good morning, sweetie. I love you.” At that moment, the light goes off for one second and right back on.