For as long as I can remember, I was told that “God is all around us.” And, both with and without evidence, I have held to that belief for my entire life. There are times when that time-held belief is exemplified; those times when the presence of God is palpable. This is about those times.
Sometimes life throws us curve balls. This is about survival, struggle, lessons learned, how it is all much easier when you ask for help in prayer, and a recognition that sometimes you aren’t even asking the right question- or listening to the answer.
I Chronicles 16:11 Seek the LORD and His strength; Seek His face continually.
When Mother Teresa revealed in a recently published compilation of letters that during a period of many decades she never saw God, she did not feel the presence of God in her life, that she was disappointed that, in all her years of service, she never had the opportunity to see God, her comments really took me by surprise. She wrote, “I feel just that terrible pain of loss, of God not wanting me, of God not being God, of God not really existing.” Mother Teresa was such an extraordinary person, having devoted her entire life to the service of others.
I wonder what her expectation was of how God’s presence would be visible to her. Was she expecting a physical presence, a vision, a man, Caucasian, middle aged or elderly, with a white light shining from behind him or a halo over his head? What is “seeing God” supposed to look like, whether you are Mother Teresa or any other person?
The more I thought about it, the more perplexed I became. After all, Mother Teresa was exceptional, beyond compare, selfless, tireless. If she never saw God, or lost sight of God, then what is the likelihood any of the rest of us will experience seeing God? Perhaps she was being challenged in the way that Job was tested and held to his faith. Surely, she is the model of devotion and sacrifice, and she continued to serve throughout her years of conflict regarding her relationship with God. I am a regular, ordinary person- mother, wife, attorney, community volunteer. Yet, I am confident that I have seen God- in the way that I believe God’s presence is available to our eyes.
I feel comfortable attesting to my witness of God near me, in me, around me. Not in physical, male form. Rather as energy in a form that was as a palpable as any presence, tangible, unmistakable, whole. I believe we have the opportunity to see God much more that we realize, or exercise. This book is about those times when the presence of God was undeniable, God on earth, palpable, visible to my consciousness. The awareness of God’s presence is seeing God.
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