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I should have been happier. It was three days before Christmas and I was driving
alone on a country road in our small mountain community delivering
home-baked cookies to shut-ins.
I had spent the last couple of days with church friends,
mixing dough, shaping date balls, melting chocolate, baking dozens and
dozens of several varieties of Christmas cookies. We
had covered every surface in my kitchen with cookies, laughing uproariously
at our own jokes and singing off-key.
Driving alone, I was having a conversation with my Lord
about the death of my mother four months earlier. We’d
had this conversation before and each time the Lord had provided a measure
of peace. But only a measure, it seemed.
And yet, they surfaced again and again; the same
questions. Over and over and over: "Why did
my saintly mother have to endure so many years of mind-numbing pain before
her death? Why don't I have peace about where she
is at this moment? Why, Lord, why?"
I delivered all the cookies that were assigned to me,
warmly greeting the shut-ins who had no inclination of the battle being
waged within me. At my final stop, a lady, accepting
a box of cookies, kissed me on the cheek and
whispered "You're an angel, do you know that?"
I was anything but an angel and I knew it.
Back in the car, I drove a short distance, then pulled
over next to an old, weathered split-rail fence and parked. No farmhouses were in view.
I laid my head down on the steering wheel and wept. I missed my mother. This was
my first Christmas season without her. I had no
peace in my heart about where she was. I knew well
the verse, "to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord." Still, I wept alone on that country road, unable
to accept the peace that God was so willing to give me.
Finally, in desperation, and with no thought of Biblical
precedent, I asked the Lord for a sign. A sign
that He cared; a sign that He heard me; a sign that He loved me.
Wiping my eyes, I returned to our country home where I
quietly prepared dinner for my husband. We were
alone; our sons were married and living in another part of the state.
The next morning, while dressing for church, my husband
turned quickly to me in surprise and asked, "Where on earth did you
find it?"
"Find what?" I asked,
straightening my skirt before the mirror.
"The ruby!" he replied. "Isn't
that your ruby there on the bedspread?"
I rushed to the bed, picked up the ruby, held it close
to my breast and began to weep.
A year earlier, my husband and I had celebrated an
important wedding anniversary. My siblings,
pooling their resources, had presented me with a lovely ruby on a simple
gold chain. The next week, the stone had
inexplicably come loose from its setting and was never found, leaving me
distraught beyond reason.
I had searched for nearly a year, combing the carpets,
checking our closets, looking in the most unlikely places for this ruby
which had lovingly tied me to my siblings with umbilical strength.
And now, on this Sunday morning, the ruby appeared from
nowhere in the center of our bedspread. More
curiously, the bed had been made less than a half-hour before.
My husband, sensing my suspicion, placed his hands
firmly on my shoulders and assured me that, as a Christian, he could affirm
that he knew nothing about the ruby's whereabouts or how it ended up on our
bedspread. Looking deeply into his eyes, I
believed him.
I turned the precious stone over and over in the palm of
my hand. How like God! He
knew my flawed faith. I had asked Him for a sign
and He surprised me with joy.
There could be no other explanation.
And I sought none.
Mariane Holbrook is a retired teacher, an author of two
books, a musician and artist.
She lives
with her husband on coastal North
Carolina.
She maintains a personal website
www.marianholbrook.com and welcomes your Emails at Mariane777@bellsouth.net.
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