I remind myself that the Holy Spirit is real. ACTUALLY REAL.  The Holy Spirit HIMSELF, of course, reminds me that He is real. We are blessed because the Holy Spirit “IS”- as in ‘I AM” – on the MOVE… 

A BLESSING after my Dad’s passing has been spending time in this sweet crush of LOVE’S outpouring of support.

Love IS showing to be real right now. Love IS real. Love IS.

In between raindrops on Saturday morning I went to the packed Farmers Market. Here if you wait long enough the weather changes. The last few days it has flip flopped sun and showers. That is also how we often are with grieving. We have memories and moments back and forth of sorrow and joy – all to be weathered like weather. On this day, this moment, the blue flowers caught my eye, and I had 4 bucks leftover clenched in my fist – enough change to splurge after my happy purchase splurges of shelling peas, maple syrup popcorn, and real blackcaps – a side of the road delicacy of a variety with white stems unique to this area, different than those only a few hours south. These fruits from the first to last bites gave me equally sweet memories of my childhood. 

Four bucks cash? Blue flower? Wouldn’t you know that it was 4 bucks. SOLD. I carried it back to the car and looked down at the tag quickly and saw the name was BLUE BIRD. Haha Lord!!! That’s the name of my Dad’s favorite bird. Of course you knew that, Lord. CUTE!  It could have stopped me in my tracks – those God-sightings tend to do that – but this time, this moment, I didn’t stop walking because it is hard to stop and count the number of God sightings that I have had today, yesterday and every day. One could wonder that what we see everyday are “simply serendipity situations” or coincidences or real Holy Spirit movements. I also didn’t stop walking as I would never get anywhere, AND I had to get out of the rain back to the car, but we (especially I – really I) should stop and BE STILL and absorb what the Spirit is showing me (or trying to show me). The Spirit today IS telling me that He Himself IS taking care of my Dad. I believe it. I believe Him. I won’t multiple choose guess about God, I will say IN TRUTH that these good memories are God sightings and they ARE from Him.

The bluebird is my father’s favorite bird.  I have a bluebird pin that sat on my dresser and that I wore as I was driving up to see him that morning that he passed. The previous visit, 2 weeks ago, I don’t know what possessed me to ask him what his favorite bird was, because I KNOW what his favorite bird is. The grimace on his face of “you’ve got to be kidding, asking me” told me LOTS, reinforced my knowledge that he was very well aware of everything going on. It reminded me that I needed to trust the Lord working out all things. I need to remember that I DON’T know all the inner workings of the Lord thru the Holy Spirit, but if the Lord takes care of the birds, therefore He was and is taking care of my Dad. The Lord was telling that His Spirit within my Dad was moving and working this whole time. The conversations that my Dad had with the Lord in my Dad’s final days must have been tremendous. 

Bluebirds require special houses, so how much more does the Lord prepare a room for each of us in His house because of His LOVE. My Dad’s last words that I heard on the phone the day before he passed were “Thank you.” when I told him that I loved him and everyone was praying for him. His answer: “Thank you”. It IS and WAS and WILL BE, YOUR PRAYERS which ARE the Holy Spirit moving. It was because of YOU and the Spirit in you that helped carry my father thru. It is You Lord, where credit is ALL due.

I love the idea of the fun good “coincidental” things that happen in life, like the BLUEBIRD name of the flower. I love the nifty “coincidence” of a neighbor needing a ramp for a visiting relative coinciding with the dismantling of our ramp that my Dad now did not need. We love saying how serendipitous things fall into place, don’t we. For example my father’s assigned cemetery plot number matches my parents’ house number where they have lived for nearly 60 years.  So MANY of those fun things abound. Of course we need to be careful, as what we see every day can be said to be “in the flesh” and not reliable. We must and BEWARE the things of evil to trip us up – BUT I am NOT going to solve that answer of coincidence serendipity and Spirit in a simple blog, how dare I. BUT, I will tell you where I KNOW the Holy Spirit has been working – in my faith of God in helping my Dad with his faith. 

Those flowers, the bluebirds, and even worldly things, ARE worldly things. We must be careful to not read tea leaves when God Himself made and gave us His cup to be known. We also must fear the Lord and read Him. But as human as I am, asking for discernment, I am knowing that the Holy Spirit works all things for the glory of God, I put my confidence not in the flesh but in these connections that the Holy Spirit makes as answers of our prayers. If it brings us closer to God, I best say: It AIN’T serendipity if it really IS the Holy Spirit.  (And honestly I would never ever bet on it, I would just believe.)

I believe in God being Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth, so when we pray and ask specifically, He sends the Holy Spirit. I don’t have to tell you all my God-sightings or God winks to convince you that God is paying attention to us. I pray you already know His Holy Spirit is active in your life, and want to know Him more. I do know that His ability to send the Holy Spirit makes me sigh and smile. 

The weather, and our sorrows and joys in life change. If you wait long enough, your view will change and with discernment you MIGHT see what the Holy Spirit was trying to show you all along: HIM. You don’t know how God makes and stores snowflakes, right? So honestly most of the time we have no clue how many times in life the Holy Spirit holds the glue. We have no clue, but the Holy Spirit is TRUE.

AMEN and Lord, I believe You are there always.

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Jesus said (in John 16:12-15):

“I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. He will glorify me because it is from me that he will receive what he will make known to you. All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will receive from me what he will make known to you.”

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1 Corinthians 2:7-16 Paul speaking to the church:

…we declare God’s wisdom, a mystery that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. However, as it is written: “What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived”— the things God has prepared for those who love him— these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit.

The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us. This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words. The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit. The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments, for,

“Who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Corinthians%202%3A10-16&version=NIV;KJV