Have I Seen The Hand of God in My Life Today?

In the October 2007 General Conference President Eyring gave a talk that really stuck with me. Recently, in teaching a 15/16 year old Sunday school class, an excerpt of this video resurfaced as part of the lesson I was trying to teach. The topic of the lesson was how keeping a journal can bless our families.

https://www.lds.org/youth/learn/ss/marriage-and-family/journal?lang=eng#video=o-remember-remember

I have attached the clip so you can understand where this blog is coming from…

Let me just preface this by saying I am a horrible journal keeper… which is one of the reasons why I have started blogging… it seemed like a fun way to do some journaling. I need to do a better job at writing things down that are more private that I can’t share in a public way so that my family will have a record of my thoughts someday.

Since I heard this talk back in 2007, I have tried to be more cognizant of God’s hand in my life. It’s amazing to me that the more I look for it, the more I notice evidence of it.

About 13 years ago, I was in a car accident. We had driven nearly 600 miles that day from Montana back to Boise and just a few blocks from home, a driver was talking on his cell phone and ran a stop sign and t-boned my car. It triggered a neurological disorder that has been a big trial for me since I deal with chronic pain now, every day of my life. I have often pondered the circumstances that caused me to be in that exact place at that exact moment in time. What if I had tarried a few extra minutes at a gas station along the way or what if I had driven a few mph slower for even just a few miles of that trip? I wouldn’t have been in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Ever since then, whenever I am in a car and something causes me to be delayed… another vehicle driving more slowly than I, a light turning red and causing me to stop, a pedestrian crossing a road… I smile and think that it might be God preventing me from being in the wrong place and helping me to avoid another trial in my life.

A few weeks ago, I had to take a drive from my town in Bonney Lake to a neighboring town to the northeast, Federal Way. On the way there, I noticed that the freeway was quite backed up due to the lateness of the afternoon. I decided I would take an alternate route home and avoid much of the back-up and then hop on the freeway closer to home. On that alternate route, I discovered that the road I needed to take to the freeway was closed for a few weeks, which meant I had to drive through a LOT of road construction in Edgewood. I chuckled to myself as I thought of my theory about being delayed while driving. I thought no big deal, I would just pop up over the hill through Edgewood, drop down into another little town, Sumner and then get on a different freeway. I got over the hill and as I was just about to get into Sumner, there was a semi jack-knifed on across the road. It was evident that he was REALLY stuck and it was going to be a while….  Again, no big deal, I turned around and went back a different way. By now I was to the point of relying on the GPS for a third route and when the GPS told me to turn left, I reluctantly obeyed. (The GPS and I frequently have trust issues). I followed the road back down the hill only to find myself face to face with the SAME jack-knifed semi.  It was as if God was playing with matchbox cars and every turn I made, he placed an obstacle in my path to prevent me from getting back home. I was surprisingly NOT upset. I was laughing out loud when I called my hubs to tell him that I would NOT be returning to work that day because God didn’t want me to…LOL! I once again turned around thinking, “OK God. I get it. I needed to be delayed for some reason, and since it is too late to return to work, I just need to get home now.” I once again turned to the GPS, this time ignoring the prompt to “turn left” at a particular intersection. I followed the directions into another little town, Milton, only to get stopped by a train! I finally found my way to Puyallup to get on the same freeway I was trying to avoid to begin with only a LOT farther south than where I needed to be! I made it home safe and sound. I have no doubt that God’s hand was at work in my life. I will probably never know what may have happened if I had not encountered all those delays, but I am grateful that I can recognize the hand of God in my life.

In retrospect, perhaps God's hand was in my life the day of my car accident. I believe that we all knew what kind of trials we were going to have to face before we came to earth. I can't help but wonder if my medical challenges were something that I knew I would have to deal with and that indeed God's hand was in my life that day. My car was totalled, my daughter had to be extricated from the car on a back board, but yet our lives were spared. We had no cuts or broken bones and my daughter, who was sitting in the seat where the impact happened, has had no lasting effects from the accident. I doubt she even remembers it. Indeed God's hand was in our life that day as well!

So back to my Sunday school lesson…. I gave each of the kids a notebook and challenged them to start writing down their thoughts and pondering at the end of each day, this question:

“Have I seen the hand of God in my life today?”

I am excited each day to look for the possibilities and I find myself pondering this question several times throughout the day. When I recognize those moments when God is gently interceding in my life, I take a moment to be grateful and to communicate with God that I am well aware of his tender mercies in my life. I dare you to try it… like I said earlier, the more you look for it, the more you notice evidence of it.