When I saw the Five Minute Friday freewriting prompt word that Friday, I startled.

“Blue!”

But I’d already written on that! In my journal. So how could I “freewrite” on it two weeks later?

Well, it’s another week later now, but I really want to share how God makes His presence known—at least one way He did for me…

Right from my journal pages:

I was blue–deep, dark, indigo, blue-black blue–and having a very hard time crawling out of the blues. I felt wrecked and hopeless. And I stood at the kitchen side window, elbows on counter, and I thought of how someone once told me, “If you want to change your attitude, start with gratitude.”

I also prayed to God, “Please show me a sign for good.”

And I recalled how, when I’d prayed that same prayer the day before, I’d thought of beauty, how every beauty in creation is a kind of sign for good, a “kiss from God,” and how, almost simultaneously, the thought of a blueberry had come into my head, a single blueberry.

I didn’t know why. I was in the guest room at the time, with no blueberries anywhere near. Maybe because [husband] had had blueberries floating in the milk of his cereal bowl early at his breakfast–and  I was hungry for blueberries? 

I had gone and got some then from the freezer and poured fresh rich milk and sugar on them and ate and reveled in them, and I’d plucked one single frozen berry, all blue and beautiful throughout, and admired its perfect design and goodness, and thanked God for blueberries, most genuine thanks…

Now, today, as I stood at that window, looking nowhere really, thinking of beauty as a sign for good, I “came to” and noticed: right before me on the window sill was a wee cache of blue statice.

I picked up a stem and examined its blossoms. Papery ruffles of petals. My naked eye couldn’t discern, but it looked like the edges were scalloped, or pinked zigzag. I went in search of “Maw Maw’s” old bejeweled magnifier, and held up both it and the flower before the window’s light. 

Magnified and backlit, you could now see  its translucence and the faint random stripes down its length: darker lavender blue on lighter, a joy.

Then, as I kept gazing at this beauty and thanking God for it, movement beyond the window caught my eye. Changing focus to midrange, there, at the (inactive, foodless) bird feeder, I saw… a bluebird!

Now bluebirds just delight my heart, and to watch one at such close range was rare. 

But wait! Not just one! Here came another! They hopped and flitted, and poked their heads into the holes (that give access to winter food under shelter). One flew in momentarily.

“They’re aiming to set up housekeeping!’ I thought, all excited, and wondered if we had enough bluebird houses erected. I’d have to ask.

They flew off a while, but then came back, and repeated the same routine. Obviously they couldn’t nest there, but that they should hang out here so long, as if considering it, when I’ve never seen a bluebird at that feeder before… Well, I call that a “kiss from God, a sign for good. And that’s what God is–Good.

It was just a wee “coincidence,” healing my discouraged heart! And now, days later, to turn to FMF, and see that prompt word, “BLUE,” it was just too much. Too much for mere coincidence.

How ’bout “a sign for good”?

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Q: Have you ever asked of God “a sign for good”? Did you pay attention then so you wouldn’t miss one if He sent it? What happened?