Three Feathers

My fingers are flying across the keyboard this morning. I witnessed a straight-up miracle and I can’t tell you fast enough.

The Lord has provided so many confirmations throughout this process and there was a new one that I began to recognize last week.

On our first visit with him, Jac0b found a black and blue feather in our back yard.  He asked that we keep it for him for the next time he was home.  Since then, he has found at least two more.  We only have 2 trees in our yard and not many around us in our suburban neighborhood so it’s not like we have droves of birds visiting us.

I thought it was just kind of cool until I remembered the significance of feathers for me in the past.

You  might remember this post which I detail out this significance, but if not, I will quickly recap.

When I began thinking about what I wanted this space to look like, I completed a practice that Holley Gerth recommends where you pin any picture on Pinterest that feels like what you want your blog to feel like.  You don’t think about it too hard, you just do it.

I didn’t realize when I was doing it, but in a consultation, Holley pointed out feathers or wings were a theme, a symbol of encouragement or lifting others up.

Well, when I went to the blogging conference Allume last year and was questioning a lot of things around my writing, I not only won 1 of 10 paintings that artists painted during a session at Allume, it was a painting of a feather.

There’s a whole lot more to this story, but the bottom line is God was saying, I see you broken, I love you, I want to replenish you and call you out for my purposes. You just need to be available.

So, this morning, I just really wanted to share with you how I felt with the feathers and Jac0b that the Lord was still saying this to me, and based on the past few posts, you know how desperately I need to hear this message.

I got home from taking the kids to school and I really felt the Lord asking me not to do my normal exercises but to take Bella on a walk.  She stared at me in eager agreement so I went.  I was thinking about writing this post and simply asked the Lord if he could possibly send me a feather on my walk this morning.  It felt so silly, but I told him I believed he could do it.  I would watch and walk.  God has provided for me in a walk before, so I had faith he could do it.

So I go around a turn, up a hill and start to turn back.  As I was walking back down the hill, normally I would turn left to go back home,  I felt the Lord prompting me to turn right.  And I felt this message in my spirit: sometimes you have to go to the unfamiliar and uncomfortable places to find God.  I never turn right at this place because in the past, there has been a dog that lives down that way that is not so friendly with my dogs.  The dog has since moved, but it still feels a little scary to me.  It’s ridiculous, I know.

So I did it.  I hadn’t found my feather yet and I thought, well, that would be pretty cool if I did find it there.

I turned the corner and wouldn’t you know, almost immediately there was a feather sitting right on the side of the road.

I literally gasped when I saw it.  He had done it! The Lord had provided a feather!

I picked up the feather and felt like I was holding a miracle in my hands.  And so I believed even more, we are in an uncomfortable and unfamiliar land right now with this adoption, but if we ask and seek the Lord, he will provide.

So I started back on my walk to my house and I got to the house and I felt the Lord once again prompting me to go beyond my house, where I don’t normally walk my dog.  I asked the Lord, really, do you think you can provide another feather for me this morning? It just feels like so much to ask.

I didn’t get another 50 feet and there it was.  A feather right in the middle of the road.

I gasped again.  Lord, you did it! Another feather!

I went to turn back to home and still, the Lord was prompting me to go to the end of my road.  It’s a big hill down and back up and really, I just didn’t want to go.  I thought really, Lord, could you provide even one more feather for me if I go?

Guys, I got to the very  bottom of our street and there in the cul-de-sac sat a little baby feather.

One for each of my three kids.

Listen to me. God is with us.  He’s with you. He needs us to be available. He needs us to ask him for help.  He needs us to believe that He can provide.  He needs us to be aware and attentive to how he is providing. He loves us so, so much that he can provide whatever we need for us to believe this is true over and over and over.

Thank you to those of you who are praying for me. I see Him and I hope you are encouraged that your prayers are powerful and effective. God is so good!