It was a small, intimate gathering of fellow bloggers. We meet monthly to be encouraged and enriched in our blogging endeavors. We learn about various tools our instructor explains and sometimes demonstrates for us, giving us examples about writing inside our blogs. And we are introduced to ideas, lots of ideas about why we blog, the importance of sharing our passions, and even serving the community with the writing in our blogs.
But tonight was special. We were wrapping it up, going past our 2 hours which is easy to do, even with busy schedules and other priorities screaming for our attention. And then it happened. Our attention was brought to something higher than ourselves, way beyond this drive to write out the surf on our creative edge. It began when our instructor just wanted to be thankful. She reviewed how God spared her daughter from harm after she had been mugged recently. She was not injured, and after finding some of the cards in her purse that were thrown on the ground, accounts were closed and nothing was lost. Even though she was quite shaken, there was someone at work on her behalf that night that brought hope to a rejoicing mother. When her daughter ran back to the restaurant for help, one of her customers had given her daughter a hand-written note containing $50, announcing that it was the help of God that brought her back safe and unharmed. We were all recognizing God at work in different ways in our lives, and then our attention was turned to confessions of our fellow bloggers’ practice of praying. She talked of her preoccupation of communing with God in the mornings. Often after her morning prayers, she would hover in the silence during the next moments, waiting and listening for a response spoken in a language only her heart could understand, telling her that God did indeed hear her prayers. When she mentioned a list of names she had a habit of praying for everyday, our instructor asked if her name was on that list. Oh who wouldn’t want to be on her prayer-list! It was like listening to Mother Teresa revealing secrets to partaking in the divine! And then as some of us were heading for home, I was struck by this rare phenomenon. I wish it wasn’t so uncommon, but how often do we hear people rejoicing over the things that God is doing? It was sweet and holy and very special.
