Tuesday, May 19, 2020
Jennifer Gaudreau
When in your life have you experienced the nearness of God?
When in my life have I experienced the nearness of God…..through moments I’ve come to call “Bubble Flowers and ForeverGreens”
I suppose we all wonder how thin the veil of communication between this life and Eternal Love might be. I think I have sensed what I would call more than just my own imagination or intuition. God’s presence? I hope to know for certain someday but for now I will enjoy the mystery of these moments and try not to define them as they seem like the wind. There are many stand out moments in my life where I wondered about God’s presence; joys in nature, times with family and friends, times in school and at work, in prayer, with mentors, and when meeting my husband. I am sure, for me as well as others, that some seemingly ordinary moments at times hold a sense of deeper wonder and presence. There are a couple of special standout moments as a parent I’ll share that were so palpable that I now name all the other moments by these.
Once on a walk in the Summer when my son was 3, he ran through a field by the sea picking dandelions at the stage when their seed heads were ready to be carried off by the wind. He picked them one at a time while he gleefully blew on them like bubble sticks proclaiming them “ Bubble Flowers” as they flew away. This was for many uncounted minutes as there were many covering the field. I love the memory of his boundless joy with them as “bubble flowers”, linking his imagination with the reality of nature. Along with my husband we watched with a sense of timelessness and I felt that somehow his imaginative inspiration at that moment was Love speaking to and through him, to us. There are so many of these creative memory moments in childhood but this had for us a special laser focus and boundless joy. I can still see it so clearly in my mind and we still talk about it as a family and when new moments happen we say “ remember the bubble flowers?”
In another moment I recall my daughter at age 3 playing in our yard one sunny Winter fresh snow fallen day. We had spent the Fall planting evergreen trees on the border of our yard and they were still tiny and beautiful and now in their dormant state for the Winter. While giggling and making snow angels along with my son and us my daughter looked to the trees, smiled and called them “ForeverGreens!” Again, here it was, a laser moment to pause at the intersection of nature and imagination when a child says something that seemed to highlight a moment of timelessness. Love speaking to and through her to us? We still recall it together and smile, remember the “forevergreens?!”
Years before, at a crossroads in my single young adult life, I recall a jolting moment, a similar sensation or intuition while I was sitting by myself in the sun. I had been quietly thinking and whispered out loud to myself “what now?” and right after had a very clear nudge of joy come so suddenly. It was that same connection to other playful or pausing moments I had felt before then, familiar but this time even more searing and honestly hard to explain.
“So unanticipated, unexpected” I thought, “what was that?” I wanted to hold on to it.
I cannot anticipate or fully explain these moments of stopping, opening and listening. Intuition? God’s Presence? They are rare and seem to be not on my own, not on our own timelines. I am sure others have had these hard to explain moments as well. Though I can’t fully explain them, since our kids flower and tree moments I have the gift of naming them, timeless little moments of “Bubble Flowers and ForeverGreens.”
For this moment during Covid I will draw upon these and other "holding moments" trusting that Love is ever present to us all.