You want to know if God is real…
I was 8 years old. I wasn’t sleeping well, as night fell I would become afraid.
It didn’t matter who was around or what was happening the moment the sun began to set this darkness and fear would cover me like a warm blanket. But not a warm blanket on a winter’s night, more a warm blanket on a hot summers night. When all you want to do is escape the heat and heaviness, yet you can’t.
I was in a season where I hated the night. Even when I could sleep i’d dream horrible dreams, I’d sleep walk. And I began to become tortured during my days as exhaustion crept in.
One day my mom took us to the beach to teach us to paint. My soul found rest in the sound of the waves, their constant was what I needed. I needed to know and trust that they were going to just keep coming, and they did. It comforted my heart and it was also there that I realized how lost, how afraid and hopeless I had become.
In desperation I stood at the waters edge and spoke to the sky, “God, if you’re real I need a sign, and not just the idea of a sign! I need you to make yourself real to me because I am so afraid, I feel so alone. I can’t have an idea of your love, I need to know it’s real.”
I turn to walk away almost mad that the seas didn’t instantly part and I glance down to see a rock. This rock wasn’t just a normal rock, etched perfectly inside of this rock was a shape of a heart!
It may have been small and silly, but that moment changed everything for me. I felt love, like to my core. My demands weren’t met with anger, rather tender kindness and I knew despite what anyone else may try and say I would never doubt that there was a God and that He loved me enough to meet me right where I was at.
I am now a grown woman, and when I stop and look for my heart rock on the beach more likely than not, I find it.
We all need that reminder we are loved. We all need to know that the creator of the universe would stop to show us a sign that He loves us and cares very deeply for the state of our heart and lives. If you are questioning that very thing I did so many years ago I encourage you to ask. But brace yourself, because He might meet you there on the waters edge of your life, just like He did mine.
