Having “This is weird, but …” moments.
Oct 7th by JonGod is weird.
Prayer is weird.
Faith is weird.
When you stop to think about it, being a born again Christian is a weird thing.
I believe that I have the power of the God who created the solar system inside me. I believe that the same power that raised Jesus Christ from the dead flows in me and lives in me. I believe that at any given point in any given day, I can reach out to a holy Lord who set the entire universe in motion and have a conversation.
That is weird, but it’s also surprisingly easy to forget …
It’s easy to get lost in the knick knacks of Christianity, in the day to day grind of church life and community building and practicalities of faith. It’s easy to get so used to prayer or worship that you forget there’s an all powerful being we’re singing to. You forget that the hilarious mind behind the platypus and the beautiful mind behind the sunset is listening and watching and interacting with us.
It’s easy to have a sterile, boring faith.
But sometimes, God reminds us how weird and wonderful a relationship with Him really is. Sometimes, He reminds us that He is supernatural. Sometimes our ears and hearts are open wide enough to remember that He is deep and mystical and mysterious.
Sometimes we have a moment that forces us to say, “This is weird, but …”
Have you ever had one of those? It’s a moment where something so crazy happens to you that you can’t deny God’s existence but at the same time you can’t think of a way to logically explained what just happened to your friends. Ration and logic have been thrown out the window and as you start to share the story of what occurred, you can do nothing else but simply admit, “This is weird, but …”
That happened to my wife a few weeks ago.
Her cousin Camden was ill. Since he was a child, Camden had struggled with a condition similar to Muscular Dystrophy. When he was 10, what was at first just a tendency to be off balance and a little awkward was diagnosed as a serious, fatal illness. Slowly, over two decades, he lost control of his body. A running, smiling little boy ended up in a wheel chair. A young man in a wheel chair who loved to talk about Michael Jordan ended up blind and deaf. One by one, the functions of his body shut down while the strength of his mind remained.
On the morning of Sunday, September 20th before church my wife was praying and reading her Bible study. Suddenly she had a picture of Camden in her heart. An image of him dancing with his grandparents in heaven. He was singing and my wife was overwhelmed with how tall he was, having not seen him out of a wheelchair for a decade. He was happy and he was laughing and everything was OK.
An hour later, as we waited for church to start, my mother in-law called and let us know that Camden had died.
When I saw the call and said to my wife, “That’s weird, your mom is calling us,” she instantly knew what it was about. She knew that Camden was gone. She knew that he was dancing.
It’s tempting to try to explain away the weirdness of moments like that, to rationalize why my wife had a vision of the once crippled Camden dancing while hundreds of miles away in Florida he was leaving this earth at the very same moment. To pretend that wasn’t a tremendous gift from a Creator who knows and loves us, and maybe assume it was just a random passing thought.
But I can’t.
Our God is wonderful
Our God is unfathomable.
Our God is uncontainable.
Our God is weird.
Has that ever happened to you? Have you ever had a moment where something happened where you couldn’t do anything but say, “This is weird, but…?”
Let’s talk about that today, finish this sentence:
“This is weird, but __________”
Comments
Wanted to share another “This is weird”…
I had been praying in my car before going in to my office. While I was walking across the parking lot, the Holy Spirit said very clearly “Take Mary to Grief Share.” Mary is my high-school-age daughter’s friend, who had lost her mother to cancer about 2 years before that. Grief Share is a program at my church (and many others) to help people after they’ve walked through the valley of death. It was weird because I hadn’t been praying or thinking about Mary at the time. So I wondered how I would even go about asking her to go, because she’s not a Christian. But that night when she was at our house, I told her about it and said I was going to go because of my miscarriage (see my earlier post) and asked her if she might like to go with me. She said “Mrs C! I really WOULD like to go. I’ve been so mad at God lately and I feel like I need to make peace with Him.” I spent those weeks with her, driving to and from Grief Share, answering her questions and seeing her finally accept her mother’s death. Weird? no. God? yes.
This might not fit in with all the warm , fuzzy, positive stories that have been shared, but I think it's very important that we look at the other side of how God can sometimes deal with us too..
A few months ago, my car kept breaking down. For weeks on end, every few days, I couldn't drive it for some reason or another. The last time it broke down, a few co workers asked me "is your car broken down again? when are you going to have it back this time?" and I would reply "I'm not…I am done putting money in that thing…I've had it "…..
Fast forward a couple of weeks ..and the car was repaired and ready to drive again…but on my way to work that morning, I was in an accident that completely totalled the car…so that now I have no transportation at all ( see end of story below )
I say this to point out the lessons God has shown me in this about my lack of gratitude, my poor witness before others ( my co workers ) and my nasty attitude toward the prior situation with the car…rather than being thankful for even having a car, and rather than showing faith in God to my co workers, and rather than seeing the temporary car troubles as a way to grow in faith, etc….I , instead, made negative comments….and it's important to realize that our words hold such power..for good or for evil.
For any new Christians reading this…or anyone struggling with their faith , or with trusting God…please do not take this to mean that I see God as the bad guy , the punishing Father, in this story.
What I see, instead, is the great gift I had before..and how I should have been more thankful for it..and the great opportunity I lost to witness to my co workers in strong faith that God would take care of the situation.
Its made me much more careful about what I speak , and the attitude I carry , and my response to petty troubles we all face, and our reaction to them….I'm very thankful to God for these lessons …
Back when my husband and I had been dating for about a year, I had a dream that I was walking down a hospital hallway and peering in the different rooms.
I got to one room and the door was closed, but the chart hanging from the door and my husband's grandmothers name on it. When I woke up the next morning I felt bugged, but I just felt stupid calling my then boyfriend to tell him.
Eventually it bugged me enough that I did call him and say "this is weird, but…" and tell him the story. I then went into work. At lunch time I checked and had a voicemal from him saying "Honey I love you, but you freak me out". He had called his grandmother's house to check on her, and his aunt answered the phone, saying that she had fallen and was rushed to the ER.
I had only met her once, and I lived about an hour from his family. His grandmother has since passed away, but he did get to spend some quality time with her first. We still are comforted by God's love in that situation today…
I can't speak of any miracles, but last Christmas day I was at home at night. We used to go to my grannie's house for my mother's side of the family to meet up, but my grannie died a few years back and no-one wanted to do the meetup thing (probably for logistical reasons as much as anything). So I was sitting alone in my room wondering about life and trying to do that waiting on God thing people talk about. As I sat there I felt like I was being hugged by God. Truly the greatest Christmas present, but as you say, so easy to forget in the day to day of life.
Awesome… AWESOME POST! ok heres mine
this is weird but over 8 years ago I was suffering through a horrible divorce, I had turned to a life of womanizing, drinking, partying and daredevil living. One night I just got tired of it and sat down and made a list describing the woman of my dreams… every detail….every detail
including her personality and personal preferences. after I was done.. I looked at the impossible list and defiantly told God that until he gave me that woman I would never darken the door of a church again. I threw the pad in the corner of the room angry and went back to partying, convinced that it would never happen… 2 months later in a crowded nightclub I saw this girl… from my notepad…she matched the description so perfectly that I was stunned… she walked right up to me and introduced herself. We have been inseparable ever since …I was sure to be in church the very next Sunday…That Girl happens to be my awesome wife of 7 years and she is still the girl of my dreams…to this very day she is still so impossibly perfect for me that I still tell this story to everyone I meet.
I love this post, Jon!
This is weird, but God knew I needed a car the day before I started a new job. I was a returning missionary from Hong Kong, and couldn't find a used car that I could afford and wouldn't endanger my life or others driving it.
I sat next to a random lady at church the first Sunday i was back Stateside. Service was over and my mind was filled with worry, with a long 40 mile commute to my techie job the next day. I was wondering why God hadn't helped me out. Then, this woman turned to me, we chatted and by the end of our 5 minute conversation, she told me she'd like to give me her used Volvo.
We left and within 20 minutes, I was driving a '91 golden Volvo off her driveway.
Sending a cyber SCL hug to your wife and Camden's family! God is awesome.
ok now I have to add this lol talking of weird !!
I had JUST posted yesterday about my car that I just totalled and what I learned from that experience..but I didn't say what kind of car ….and I found it so interesting that the next 'car' story above mentioned a 91 Volvo…which is exactly the year and make of the car I just wrecked..
No idea if this is significant…but since we were discussing 'ok this is weird' moments lolT
My 'This is Weird' moment happened a few hours after reading 1 of your blog posts. It was a Tuesday and I had a heavy heart about a church member that was potentially going to be at my weekly Bible study and I had unresolved anger toward her from a situation over the summer. Your topic was about saying something mean then saying 'just kidding'. Gee – I really needed something better to help my healing. She ended up not showing up at the Bible study. I felt lead to look up a devotion on the topic of conversation. I opened it right to a devotion to the SAME proverbs you had used. Weird I had never heard it before and now 2x in one day. But it still did not heal my heart.
On the way home after talking about my feelings w/ a friend. It finally hit me. I knew the healing I needed would have to come from me. She was oblivious to the pain she caused to me. It was just as if she had hit me w/ a truck and then said "I'm just kidding"! From that moment I have let it go.
Thanks Jon!!!
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Almost every single one of my friends is a girl, and all my close friends are girls. I'm a single guy. It's not awkward, at all. At one point I was close to being engaged and one of my bestest friends (a girl) was planning on being my best man and also happened to be a good friend of the girl I was going to marry. Even when that girl broke up with me, those friendships weren't awkward. We stayed good friends.
Do you know what's awkward? Friendships with the same gender. I do not get along with other guys at all, with a few rare exceptions. Even then, I don't get as close – I can't relate with them as well, trust them as much, etc.
Sorry, that was meant for a different post of yours
This is weird but…a year or two after high school, I suddenly couldn't stop thinking about a boy from my class and that I needed to pray for him. This urging lasted about 2 weeks before it faded and I slowly stopped mentioning him in prayer. Roughly six month later I ran into him and told him of the odd feeling to pray for him, mentioning the time it occurred. Stunned, he told me that during that 2 week period he was in the hospital recovering from heart surgery!
This is also weird, but…on a family vacation our car broke down on a Sunday afternoon in the 1970s when businesses didn't open on Sundays. We "just happened" to break down in front of a restaurant where a waitress "just happened" to be getting off work who "just happened" to have brothers who worked on cars. She knew enough to be able to patch us up and get us on the road. We knew that God was watching out for us.
i disagree. i dont think any of it is weird
I went to some summer camp type thing in high school that took place in Oxford, England. One night we all saw an open-air production of As You Like It, and on the way back I got separated from the group. So there I was, in a pitch-black back street (not all of Oxford has street lighting) in a city I didn't know, wearing flip-flops on a cobbled road (for those who don't know, that's a very painful combination.) I started to get freaked out, and then I heard God saying to walk two blocks up, then take a right, then another block and a left and then look at the light fixtures. And I was on a larger road and the light fixtures were ones I recognized from a walk earlier that day, so I knew how to get home from there.
This is weird because even if I knew God does miracles today and I've witnessed some myself, I never thought it was possible for manna to appear in the Bible… as in ACTUAL flakes of life-giving bread… watching 'Finger of God' DVD, its a must-see! my understanding of how great our God is and what He can do has totally shifted.
I had a 'this is weird, but…' moment that accounts for my belief in God today. I don't know if I could even accurately describe it. In high school, I started attending a really great youth group, but after being confronted with that kind of deep, encompassing belief in God, started having serious doubts. This inward battle went on for months and was horribly agonizing for me. Most nights my prayers would be, "God, I don't know if you exist, but…" or, "God, I don't think you're real, but…" I wasn't being stubborn, I really wanted to believe in God. But I couldn't convince myself. After this going on for so long, one evening at a retreat, I prayed for God to break the barriers that were hindering my belief. My hopelessness was so real to me, I felt very defeated, I didn't understand why I couldn't believe. All of a sudden, this wave of heat went through my head and to my toes. My entire body tingled, a sensation I cannot explain, and I felt the warmth of light. I have no idea how long it lasted, the only thing I could fixate my mind on was joy and laughter. I felt as if I had transcended to another place – I couldn't hear or concentrate on anything around me, just this joy in the Lord. Honestly, it was the strangest, most illogical, unexplainable things that has ever happened in my life. But every single doubt and uncertainty in my mind vanished with that. I don't think I'd know God today if it hadn't happened. It's so weird! And hard to share my conversion story to non-believers, because, seriously, who's going to buy that? Ha. I haven't experienced His presence like that since, and although I often long to, that one experience was all the proof I need that there is something so much bigger than me that I just cannot explain. He's beautiful.
"God is weird. Prayer is weird. Faith is weird."__i feel like this quite often, does it indicate lack of faith tho?
I don't think it indicates lack of faith. God is so big and so mysterious and so weird and so beautiful.
When i say lack of faith i mean it like this. You are praying for you or praying for someone else, and at some point in the prayer your like, "what am I doing?" I am praying…not only am i praying, but I'm praying to God…who i cannot see. So when that happens, it feels like lack of faith, it feels like unbelief. I do agree tho Christianity, the truths we hold to, and sometimes untruths and traditon, are just plain wierd. But we're not of this world, so I guess that's expected.
This is weird, but…three years ago after my parents lost their home in a fire and were settling into their temporary rental, my Mom was sitting at the piano one afternoon, practicing songs for Sunday's worship. She got up and walked to the kitchen in the middle of practice to make a phone call to ask someone a question that easily could have waited until she was done. Only a minute later, the klutzy tech who was in the attic hooking up the cable interent came crashing through the ceiling onto the piano bench. (He was okay and so was the piano.)
This is weird, but…in sixth grade my parents and I decided I would transfer to a new school that we thought would be more challenging and at which I would learn more. I was learning, but I didn't know anyone there and the hour+ bus ride each way was really wearing on me. After a couple weeks my Mom was praying hard for God to give a sign about whether I should stay there or transfer back to my old school. The very next Sunday, the old school's guidance counselor randomly decided to visit our church instead of going to her normal one.
This is weird, but…one night this guy and I were both helping a mutual friend move. We had gone to high school together and each known who the other was but never talked, but that night we wound up riding together and chatting. At the time I was engaged to someone else, and he was kind of just playing the field. (Later I was informed that what looked like "playing the field" to me was actually "wife hunting!") That night after I got home I was out on the back patio taking care of the nightly kitty chores and all of a sudden I just KNEW I was going to marry him. I thought it was pretty darn bizarre, after all I'd only really talked to the guy for 2 hours EVER, and after all was engaged to somebody else, but I also couldn't deny how it just felt absolutely true. So yeah…we just celebrated our 7th wedding anniversary.
This is weird, but…three weeks ago one of the students I tutor, an extremely respectful, conscientious, and appreciative young man who always arrived early, did not show up for his lesson. I was really worried because only a couple of days before that, I'd had a very vivid sort of 'waking dream' in which someone was trying to kill him and he almost died. We just found out why we haven't seen him since–that same weekend, his mother died.
This is weird, but…in WWII my grandfather was a radio operator on a ship in the Pacific. His shift was ending and his good friend who was to come on duty and relieve him showed up a couple minutes early and insisted he go ahead and leave. My grandfather argued but in the end his friend won and my grandfather left. 5 minutes later a kamikaze hit the ship and destroyed the radio booth. I don't think his friend's body was ever recovered, and I am very sad for his family, but it is kind of creepy to realize that if not for his sacrifice my father would not be here, nor would his ten brothers and sisters, nor would I or my sister or my dozens of cousins.
OK, I'll quit hogging the comments now.
If you will permit me to quote such a person as Alice Cooper on your lovely site: "Welcome to my nightmare."
This is weird, *and* true, but I warn you, there is no true P.C. way of writing this. See, when I was just a little girl, I went to school with mostly people of a different culture than myself and most of the staff of the school, and the "stomping ground" was not exactly is an ideal part of town, either. Now, kids do have a tendency to be uncaringly cruel to each other, but my time in that school was very sad for me, as most of my classmates could use their strange language to make fun of me, and could, more or less, get away from it. During this time in my life, I was very tempted to throw in the towel and end it all, yet each time it was as though YHWH were telling me He had better plans for me. As a teenager I got some time to heal from my myriad mental wounds, and even began to miss that very culture that had made my childhood so horrible. Eventually I found myself on a mission trip to the homeland of those people, at a Children's Home, no less. On this trip YHWH revealed his "better plans" he had, that that place was to become as my home. After completing much state-side schooling, I can say that I report my first year of many more in service to the call of YHWH here in the very town that I was called in a success.
Here's a weird one for you . . . two of my friends who are pastors had attended a conference about human trafficking and felt burden to do something about it. They started to pray for God to raise up someone in our church to do something for those who work in our local sex industry. A few months later, I was driving by a brand-new strip club that opened a mile away from our church, when I had a picture in my mind of little gift bags . . . Christmas gifts for the women who danced in the club. Huh?! I called one of my two (women) pastor friends and said, "This crazy idea popped into my head today. It has GOT to be the Holy Spirit . . ." It was just the sort of answer they'd been praying for, and we began visiting the club with a few other like-minded women who care about forgotten people. Now, five years later, we've been visiting and bringing gifts to the four local clubs, as well as three in a neighboring city.
I don't know why no one has commented on this… new reader, working backward through posts.
this is weird, but i once had a random memory flashback of when my sister asked me how to get Jesus in her heart and i very knowledgeably told her to go talk to Mom because she knows what to do, except instead of my sister, it was my brother's girlfriend asking me in my "daydream" "zone out" moment. Then, later that day, I found out that she had gone to my Mom that day and asked her how to become a Christian and they had prayed together.
Does the lack of comments on this post have anything to do with our uncomfortableness with admitting we have "this is weird' moments?
oh… now all the comments show up. knew that was weird.
This is weird (and I’ve never actually come out to tell anyone about this yet because I want to avoid the ‘wow she’s a weirdo’ comments), and I totally forgot about it until a few weeks ago when I started going to church and trying to be a better person/Christian: On some random day when I was younger (maybe 13? 14? Can’t remember) I was in the car with my parents, and I was staring at the clouds. Doing the usual thing, like most kids do out of boredom, and trying to make out shapes. And I was staring at how weird and yet pretty it was that I could see the rays of sunlight come through the clouds (I never understood why paintings had them until that day, but I digress).
While staring at the clouds and trying to make out the shapes, I happened to gravitate to a particular spot. It looked like a man standing in a robe (and was a pretty darn clear image, too – definitely well defined). As I looked more intently I realized that the image before me was a man standing in a robe in front of a gate. And the man appeared to be walking *through* that gate. (Gates of Heaven, anyone?)
Now, I’ve always been a pretty skeptical person. My mom has these stories about how she actually saw Jesus in her bedroom when she was younger, and my grandfather attests to seeing him, too (I was never really religious but they both were/are so incredibly serious about the whole thing that there’s no way I can possibly believe they’re making it up). And I always kept thinking ‘If something like that happened to me, that’d be all the proof I need to truly believe.’
10+ years later, I’ve only now realized that my little clouds in the sky was the proof I kept asking for. I knew it in my gut the instant I saw it, and then eventually dismissed it (as teenagers tend to do because I didn’t want to be ‘uncool’) and only recently since coming back to God has that memory crept back up and now it totally makes sense.
I feel really good reading other people’s stories. At least it’s not just me!!
As a future pastor, how can I get an I like side hugs button?
Your post was just a "werid, but" moment for me! This is the first time I've visited your site. I'm in an uncertain place right now in regards to my relationship with my boyfriend, which itself is a "weird, but" situation…truly I have never felt led by the Lord before as I have in the development of this relationship! But, we're in the midst of some tribulation and I've been thinking lately that we may be nearing the end of God's path for us, although I sincerely hope that is not the case. So, I was looking for encouragment and found your site. I found this post and was stunned…. one night watching a movie together I had a moment that I knew our son would be named Camden! It is not a name I have heard before my own "revelation" nor a name since and there it was on your post about "weird, but" moments! As has happened before in this relationship, I just got confirmation that we are indeed on the right track and I need to remain faithful and steadfast…it's in His timing and it's His plan! THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU for this post!
god doesn't sound wierd, he sounds like an asshole. i hope your cousin-in-law's lifetime of suffering was worth it so your wife could feel a moment of 'wierdness.' not only that, enjoy worshipping the asshole who could've stopped that suffering at any time with nothing more than a thought, but who thought that all that suffering was necessary to somehow teach a couple of other people some…thing, whatever it was
Hey, I normally don't respond to these kind of comments but I've been feeling a tug to respond to you all day long.
Your comment indicates that you missed the point of the post. Jon was in no way saying that Camden's lifetime of suffering (which I can't even begin to comprehend) was for the sole purpose of his wife enjoying a "weird" moment. I will be honest and admit that I cannot even begin to fathom why Camden had to suffer so. Perhaps God made it that way for a reason, perhaps it is just the result of the fallen world. Who am I to say? None of us can even begin to imagine or understand the ways of God. There is no way a finite being such as myself can even scratch the surface of the ways and movements of an INFINITE God. Could God have stopped Camden's suffering, along with the sufferings of many millions, with a single word? Yes. Why doesn't he? I don't know, but who am I to talk back to my creator like that? All that I am sure of is that my God works for the good of those who love him. He is infinitely merciful, unfathomably loving, uncomprehendingly kind, and I, as well as all of humanity, have received much more from him than we will ever deserve.
And lest you object and say that I can say these things because I myself am telling you these things now from my comfortable seat in a warm house, belly full of food safe from any real danger, I want to let you know that I am no stranger to suffering. I hope this doesn't come off as prideful or whatever, but I want you to know that suffering has been one of the biggest themes of my life. I was molested by a trusted caregiver at the age of 4. I spent much of my childhood taking medicine and in and out of the hospital due to series of unrelated illnesses. I had ADHD and my parents were bewildered with what to do with me, and so I was shunned by both my mother and father. I struggled in school, both academically and socially. When I became a teen, the wounds of my sexual abuse manifested themselves in a desperate need for male attention. I ended up in a series of disappointing relationships that culminated in an abusive relationship where I was abused physically, emotionally, verbally, and sexually. I saw the depths of despair the night that my boyfriend attempted to rape me (but by some miracle did not). If you have never been abused, understand that the abuser takes everything from you. Your self-esteem, your confidence, your independence, your very identity. When we broke up, I was literally left with nothing. I believed that I was stupid, unlovable, and worthless.
Some might look at that and say that that in itself is proof that there can be no loving God. But to me, it is proof that there IS. I have no idea why I suffered so, or why I continue to suffer. I don't know. But I know that in worshiping Christ, I have found the greatest joy that I have ever known. I would gladly suffer a thousand times over to know this joy.
I'm sorry that you feel the way that you do. I hope that my response has helped you to at least understand where Jon is coming from. If you want to contact me further feel free to visit my blog (http://www.emilymueller143.wordpress.com) or email me at emilymueller143@gmail.com I'd be happy to talk more about this with you
I've had so many of these moments, but this is the most recent.
I am a follower of Christ in a family that is largely not following Christ. I have become a very, very strong believer since I went off to college. Just before I was to return home from college to spend a long break at home, I had a very weird, vivid dream. It was the first dream that I've actually remembered in a long time.
I dreamt that I was shining very, very brightly. I mean, my entire being was just bright, white light. I walked into a room filled with my family, and they covered their eyes and yelled at me. They told me that I was too bright, and that I hurt their eyes, and if I wanted to stay in the family I'd have to turn off the light. I replied very calmly "I can't do that." Then one of my cousins stood up and said "Well, we respect you so you don't have to turn it off, just turn it down. Again, I said "I can't do that." Then my family told me that if I couldn't do gthat, then I couldn't be with the family, and they sent me to a room by myself to sit.
When I woke up, I just KNEW that was God's way of telling me that this is what would happen to me when I went home. Sure enough, it was. I spent a majority of the Thanksgiving holiday sitting alone in a side room because no one would talk to me. And in some weird, way the dream was comforting to me – because the dream just cut off, and I feel like God's saying "This is not the end, just the beginning."
Keep it up, Jon!
This is weird, but…
One night I was biking home from work and took a detour through a nearby college campus. I knew there was a construction site coming up on my right and I could hear one of the big cement trucks rumbling closer, so I started moving my bike across the road and toward the left side.
Suddenly, without even thinking or realizing I was doing it, I swerved hard back to the right side of the road. Actually, I don't even remember swerving; I was just suddenly back on the right. A second later, a large dump truck drove around the corner coming from the left. It was hugging the curve and going fast, so I would have been struck and likely killed if my bike hadn't jerked itself.
I know my parents pray for my safety every day, and this was one time I could see–without a doubt–God answering their prayers.
Some of these instances are straight up words of knowledge – but we've been conditioned to think it's weird/creepy/ooky/spooky by churches who deny the power of the Holy Spirit in the lives of believers. We get so afraid that it might involve speaking in tongues or other "weird" stuff that we relegate this stories to sort of "one time at church camp" anecdotes that we don't talk about in serious theological company. And I'm preaching to myself here…
i live in a place where it rarely ever snows. maybe once or twice a year, in jan. or feb. when it does snow, its always a big happy thing. anyway, so one early december night i was praying my goodnight prayers and i wanted to experience God up in my face. i prayed that God would show me something really cool. something that would catch my attention and that i would not explain away as anything but the work of God. the next morning my dog shoved her paws in my face and gave me kisses until woke me up. i got up and it was snowing really hard!!!!!!!!!!!!!! the snow only lasted through the morning. i totally knew the second i saw the snow that it was God showing me the power of prayer.
amazing, thank you.
As a teenaged brand new christian, I was working in a produce outlet, unloading trucks. A giant 2 level industrial sized cart holding 50 – 50 pound bags of potatoes came down the ramp off the truck, with no one guiding it. It pinned me against a concrete wall at full speed, yet bounced off me and I was unharmed. Not even a scratch.
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This is weird, but if my husband and I weren't sanctified and protected by and loved by and cared for by a forgiving, healing, blessing Lord, we probably would have been divorced 10 times by now. My husband had gone through 20+ jobs in a span of four years, getting fired time and time again, and he succumbed to the depression that his genepool had dealt to him, without allowing anyone to help, and refusing to take his meds. He flunked out (basically) of a military career in less than a year after having a nervous breakdown… right when we'd found out I was pregnant.
I wanted to leave him. People around me gave me advice, some to stay, some to think about myself, some to think about the baby… it was a trying time. When he came home, he did okay for awhile but never really committed to receiving the help that he needed, and not taking his medication faithfully.
Our marriage hit the skids when I told him he needed to make an appointment with our doc to get a psychiatrist referral, and take the meds. he currently had faithfully until he was prescribed something else. (Admittedly what he had wasn't working). Along with not managing his depression, he was irritable and sometimes verbally abusive and I finally confided in someone who helped me realize that our situation wasn't currently healthy. They advised that I step out of the home for a few days. What was supposed to be me taking a break with our child turned into my husband throwing a tantrum and me staying moved out for two months. This was a year a go.
With careful counseling from our pastor, relearning how to relate to one another as adults and human beings, and also help from doctors, all covered in a HUGE dose of prayer:
Today, my husband is on a medication that manages his depression very well. (I am too… I also struggle with depression.) He just celebrated his ONE YEAR anniversary at his place of employment, and he genuinely gives his job his full effort and is loved and respected there. He and I are friends, and lovers, and co-sailors on this ship of life. He shares in the parenting with me, and he's making an effort to reach out to my family and become social. I'm so proud of him, and when I think of where we were a year a go and where we are now, my head is spinning.
It's weird, but I wouldn't want anything any other way. God has brought me to it and led me through it and I'm a bigger, bolder, deeper, more loving and accepting person because of all we've been through. And I can honestly say that I love my husband today more than I ever did when I was a doe-eyed teenager with starry eyes.
Thank the Lord for all he has redeemed, and all that he can redeem.
We will be celebrating our seventh anniversary shortly after the new year!
This is weird, but…
A couple of years ago I'd just gone through a very painful breakup, during which my ex had treated me pretty badly and seemed to not want anything to do with me any more, and I desperately wanted us to be friends again. Naturally I'm someone who will do everything possible to fix things myself, but I felt that God was telling me just to wait. So I left my ex alone and didn't contact him at all, but soon began doubting that I'd really heard from God, and asked Him again for guidance. At that point I picked up a devotional book I'd been reading, and found that the very next section focused on Gideon. I felt really strongly that God was telling me not to use my own resources but to trust that He would sort it out without my doing anything.
A few months later, when the pain had faded somewhat, I tried chatting casually to my ex again, and was very pleased that he seemed open to being friends. But I knew this wasn't the fulfilment of what God had promised because it wasn't properly sorted – I needed him to take responsibility for how he'd hurt me and apologise for it. My friends (including the Christian ones) told me this was the most I could hope for and he would never apologise in a million years. I kept praying and hoping that God would come through, meanwhile acting like everything was okay and never raising the issue with my ex.
A couple of months after that, in a completely unrelated conversation, out of the blue he brought it up, acknowledged how he'd acted wrongly and told me how sorry he was and how much I meant to him. In the space of ten minutes everything was resolved.
And like Gideon I knew it was nothing I'd done; God had done it all.
I wrote a song about it while I was in the 'waiting' stage, here are the lyrics:
http://www.annajo.co.uk/service2.aspx#gidac2
When I was a little girl I had a very romantic heart. I was fixated on the name Brad. Brad. Brad. Brad was always my knight in shining armour/ prince/ rescuer / king/ president…. I knew no one named Brad nor did I live in a part of the world where that was a distinct possibility. I grew out of the phase.
I married Brad when I was 22 years old. It wasn't until we'd been married a looonnnnggg time that I was reminded about my "Brad" fixation. One I honestly had not recognized during our 4 years of dating and many years of marriage.
I have those moments on a weekly basis. everything from HUGE to the minor. I love that about God-He is perpetually making Himself known to us because He wants us to truly KNOW Him.
last week when my friend Bekah said she wanted to paint me something for my birthday, she asked me what I'd like. I shrugged my shoulders & said whatever she painted I would love. Bekah's sister last piped up & said "You should paint hope." & I just looked at her wide-eyed. Bekah sisters doesn't know me at all & she definitely didn't that at the night before during my cell group one of the girls told me that she saw God restoring my heart – making into the heart that He desired for me to have, rather than mended pieces & w/ that new heart would come new hope in Him- that I would know He is my only hope. I told Bekah & her sister that, using the words "This is weird, but…" & we all just nodded, knowing God is so amazing to reveal himself.
thanks Jon -not only was this post wonderful to read, but the comments are so edifying. how can we not trust God with all this evidence pointing to the fact that He exists and loves us ?
This is weird, but a couple of years ago after our spring show for my college's dance company I and some of my friends went downtown to eat. On our way back to our cars the elevator was full so we decided to take the stair all the way up instead of waiting like normal. One of my friends is a RN and a christian and I was so glad I witnessed this happen. I believe God planned for us to take the stairs because on our way up an elderly man had just had a panic attack or heart attack, I can't remember, but in an instant my friend bolted to their aid dropping everything from her hands. The man was ok, and him and his wife were so grateful for her action. God is so amazing!
This is wierd but when I lived in Detroit, my father was gone on a trip. As the rest of my family (including me) was having devotions a large black man came up to our door and started taking the hinges off. My mom began praying and he suddenly dropped his tools and ran off.
Last October, I was driving from the CCDA conference in Cincinnati back home to Boston. It was 6:30am, and we had been on the road for 30 minutes. There were 3 lanes, and I was in the middle lane. No traffic was around me. The closest car was 1/2 mile behind me. Suddenly there was a huge deer in my headlights. I quickly turned my head, checking to see if a car was on my left, and swerved left. I was going 65 mph towards the wall in the middle of the road. I swerved right, covered all 3 lanes of traffic. A recent graduate from college, my front seat passenger was an older, African American woman, and started shouting (praying) "JESUS, JESUS, JESUS!…" I swerved left again to stay on the road. I'm out of control. I swerve 3 or 4 more times, each time gaining a little more control over my car. Everything locks up – i.e. my steering wheel won't move. My car skids at a 90 degree angle sideways down the road. It shuts off. We're safe, and my car didn't flip. The cars behind me saw it all, slowed way down, and 1 pulled over to make sure we were OK. He was a fireman paramedic on his way to work.
last march, i woke up, and decided to switch purses to something smaller that morning. but our pastor had challenged us to keep a bible with us wherever we went, so i grabbed the smallest purse that would still fit my 'pocket bible', and realized my wallet wouldn't fit so i just put my DL and 1 credit card in it.. and had to keep my cell in my pocket. That night, our Sunday school class had a game night social and i had been leaning on my hand and my fingers got very swollen so i took my wedding rings off and put them in my purse…. but on the drive home with my husband i was overwhelmed with emotions.. thinking "the rings are just a sign of course… taking them off doesn't mean anything… but i felt basically commanded to jam them back on my still a bit swollen finger" so i did….
and one credit card that i immediately cancelled… It was sooo scary but I felt very taken care of the whole time… and praise God that we were the first victims because they became more violent in their later attacks when people refused to cooperate… Thankfully they were caught on their 9th armed robbery and are in jail now…… The person that they hurt has recovered physically… and i can only speak for my husband and I, but i feel like it has brought us closer to each other and closer to God
we pulled up in the driveway, stepped out of the car.. and before we knew it, three men ran into our garage at us with GUNS (at first i thought it was an umbrella and was really confused) demanding my purse and my husband's wallet! I threw off my purse screaming screaming screaming.. and I could hear my husband yelling at them to get away from me.. Amazingly, they did run away w/o having hurt us and only getting a cheap lil purse and my bible
When my mother's uncle died, she knew it before her sister called to tell us.
my personsl this is weird …
When my mother's uncle died, she knew it before her sister called to tell us.
my personsl this is weird …
In Feb 2009 I was in my last year of college. My Dad and I typically dedicated weeknights to catch up and talk. For some reason one Friday night he just wanted to say hi and see how things were going. I was at my friend's house and when it rang I thought it was a little surprised when usually he would assume I'd be out. I even hesitated on picking it up, thinking hmm… maybe ill just let it go then call him in the morning. I got this weird instinct to pick it up and chat for a while. The next morning I got a call from my mom and sister telling me he had died from cardiac arrest. Last thing he said to me was "I love you" and I told him I loved him back.
How could that not be God's work? As painful as this all has been, I thank God for that conversation. Even though it was my dad's time to go, God loved me and knew that I needed to have one last talk with my father. Praise the Lord