God Speaks to Me at What Feels Like an Unconventional Time

I know this isn’t my typical content. Whatever you believe, or who you believe in, I think we all know deep down we’re connected to something. I think we know this, when we get “that gut feeling,” or that “little voice” inside our head.

This is the story of the voice in my head that I have grown to believe to be God interfering.

This has been heavy on my heart to share, but it didn’t feel like the conventional type of story you hear of how God works miracles in your life.

You hear the miraculous recoveries, financial boosts when you need it most, prayers granted, and questions answered.

I feel like what I have grown to know God to be, is the One who warns me when a huge shift is going to happen- the good, but mostly the bad.

Now, do not get me wrong, there have been plenty of miracles and prayers answered in my life that I am beyond grateful for. Ones that He has definitely told me were coming. However, He ultimately shows up more when I am in need of a warning.

He grabs my attention with a literal loud voice that overruns my own conscious thoughts. It’s a message of just a few short words that create an eery sentence. It pops into my head out of nowhere. It is not something I was thinking about, or stored in the deep subconscious of my mind. For as long as I remember, I would say “where did that come from.”

It just never felt like my own awareness that created that thought.

After Halie died going to church felt like a calling I needed to go towards.

I needed to understand why her time on this earth was so short. I needed to know where she was, what she was, and how I knew it was coming.

I had to figure out how to get close to her. Going to church seemed like the only answer.

I only “shopped” around once. We immediately found a home in the first church we attended. At every turn someone would recognize we were new and made us feel welcomed. They wanted to know us, our story, get to know Bodhi, and understand what our calling there was- something I still have trouble answering.

Which I think brings me to why I am writing this. See every so often, testimonials are heard on stage at church about the miracles performed in someone’s life. How God has treated them so well, answered prayers, and gave them the answers they were looking for. It inspired me, but also made me spark the question, “why are my testimonials not of miracles but of warnings?”

For the last two and a half years, I held this question. Wanting to run on stage and ask why this was happening. I wanted to know what I was doing wrong. Or to know if I was interpreting this wrong. Maybe those thoughts in my head were not God, but something I was bringing upon myself. However, in my gut I knew where they were coming from.

As our church closed out the last 2024 service, they asked people to come on stage and speak about the wonderful ways in which God held them close this last year.

The beautiful stories began to make me upset, because I couldn’t think of any I would share. We had an extremely hard year. And then I remember the voice.

On June 15th Bodhi and I went to the gym. I dropped him at the daycare, and I headed to a workout class. About twenty minutes in my husband, Kody, texted me saying his grandma had fallen and his brother is trying to figure out if he should take her to the hospital or not. She was disoriented but adamant that she hadn’t fallen.

The voice in my head said:

“This is just the beginning.”

Great.

In typical fashion there is always disputes over what to do when someone needs to be in a home or passes away. It’s a difficult time for families so no one thinks clearly and creates more drama than solutions. I thought this was just a warning of what was going to be an on-going family drama situation.

After my class, I picked up Bodhi. His right foot was inverted and he was limping. I asked him what happened and he said he fell. Bodhi showed me how he fell from about five feet off the play structure at the gym when no one was watching.

My gut said to take him to the ER. He ended up have a fractured foot. I thought, “Okay, this was just the beginning of a long weekend.”

Well, somewhere in the mix of this Kody’s dad was having a routine surgery to get screws taken out of his hip because they were causing him pain. As they took them out, they broke his hip. So now we have three family members in the hospital: Bodhi, Kody’s grandma, and Dad.

Wednesday rolls around, (yes, June 19th, just a few days later,) and grandma is slowly declining. Kody has to travel up north, because his dad is getting out of the hospital and needs a caretaker. This way Kody’s mom can go to the LA area to say her goodbyes.

When grandma passes away on June 21st, I thought for sure this was the end of what was called “just the beginning.” No voice answered back.

The boys and I took a chill Saturday just to be at home. Bodhi had his boot, it was hot, and I was feeling super sluggish after that stressful week.

Sunday June 23rd, I woke up still tired but we had family on my Step-Dad’s side, in town so we headed to breakfast. I got home a couple hours later, when this intense pain that had come on. My whole right side was lit up with shooting pain. I could barely breathe or move it hurt so bad.

I tried to take a nap, but after an hour or so, it wasn’t subsiding but getting worse. It got to the point where I couldn’t lift my leg to get out of bed or put pants on.

I thought of that voice in my head and questioned what it was.

Was I dying? Were my kids about to see me get driven off in an ambulance and never come back?

I laid in the hospital bed in agonizing pain. I knew something wasn’t right.

I have been through an unmedicated child birth and nothing compares to what this felt like. Paired with the new fear of the blood in my urine, I began to reason with God.

Demanding an answer of why this was happening and what he meant by “just the beginning.” It has only been eight days and we had already gone through five different lifetimes. What we were enduring was going to break us.

I got that voice again:

“It will be over when Kody finds a job.”

See, Kody had graduated less than a month prior and was having an extremely difficult time finding a job. However, this gave him the freedom to go take care of his dad, which we did take as good timing or a blessing.

I responded, “fine by me.”

I had a kidney stone procedure that left me in the hospital for a couple days and with a two week recovery period.

As the weeks passed and things seemed to settle down, I was still waiting. I remembered what that voice had said. Kody still hadn’t found something despite applying and applying and applying.

This gave me the chance to strengthen myself. I got back into my routine, took the brunt of the responsibility so Kody had the freedom to visit his dad and take care of his mom. Did I forget to mention she also had a small foot procedure at the beginning of July she was recovering from?

I was living in the moment waiting for what was to come. I took the time to reflect a lot on what that insane week was like. Knowing it was building and building, actually gave me more strength and courage to face what was to come. I was mentally prepared for everything we had to handle because of that warning, it wasn’t going to be good.

Kody’s dad in a courageous and beautiful way decided he was too tired to fight anymore. On July 31st he was made comfortable and passed away. Kody had it in the works with a new job just before his dad took his last breath- knowing his son and his family were going to be taken care of.

If I didn’t have that voice come to me, I probably would have been broken, played the victim card, the “woe is me.”

I would have been continuously waiting for more awful things to happen to us.

I can’t explain why my life comes with warning labels, but I need to be grateful for them. They soften the blow, give me the strength and the courage. They are just as beautiful as the miracles and blessings worked out in my life or others. They mean a great deal and I accept them now as God’s own little secret language with me.