{vision}

I just had an amazing, wonderful and emotional experience at lunch today. I normally don’t attend the group meals we have here at work (I work at a seminary), but today I felt that my presence was required, since the speaker was a part of the conference I had planned for yesterday and today. And I always find that when I push myself to attend these things, and come out of my introvert's shell, I always come away with a lesson learned. Today was no exception.

The topic he spoke about was in a general sense, prayer, and our individual prayer lives. He talked about how, since he was a small child, he would walk around for sometimes hours at a time, thinking, wondering and even talking to himself. Once he was older, he realized that this was, in fact, prayer.

Time alone with God to share your feelings, frustrations, ideas, and work through problems and situations going on in his life.

That struck me so strongly because I do this as well. I use time to myself, in nature, to think, work through issues I’m battling, and replenish my spirit. When I don’t have time to do this I feel overwhelmed and crave that time.

He put it in very simple words, that prayer can be “thinking in God’s presence.”

What a wonderful way to explain prayer, especially for someone who grew up thinking the only way to pray was to begin with “Dear God, please…” , or it wasn’t really a prayer. I found out that I’ve been praying all along, in a way that I wasn’t even aware of.

He also talked about how sometimes he speaks out loud to someone that isn’t there, like a person he is angry with or has a problem that he needs to work out with. I do this, and have always been a bit embarrassed by it, but now I see

such a strong value in this as a way to talk to God about something that is bothering me, and letting him be my sounding board.

The other part of his presentation that opened my eyes to how God works in our lives was about experiencing visions. The word vision to me before today’s experience evoked a picture of bright lights shining down from heaven on someone, and God’s booming voice telling them what he thinks they should do. But I learned today that very simple things can be visions, and that I have experienced them as well.

Before Dan and I had the boys, we would drive around this beautiful neighborhood here in town that is behind our local park. Dan would usually initiate the detours but I always enjoyed them as well. It is such a beautiful area with lots of trees, hills and pretty houses. He would always say as we drove through there that he wanted to live in that neighborhood, and we would usually look at a few different houses that really caught our eye.

Now we are living in that neighborhood, in one of the houses that I always admired on our drives, and I realize that God was showing us his vision for our future and for our family. It may sound simple and uncomplicated, but I like that God can be just that, simple and uncomplicated. What a lovely way to look at the path our lives take.

Thank you God, for our cozy house in our lovely neighborhood, and for showing it to us so many time, and years before we knew we would make it a home. What a blessing.