Saturday, June 26, 2010

Still Listening!

At 15 years of age, I had a decision to make. Our church had a program for youth willing to volunteer a summer working with the mentally handicapped. I had seen a presentation and was kind of interested, but a whole summer? That would mean missing a whole summer of baseball and whole summer missed spending time with my pals. It was a big decision and my parents encouraged me to think about it for a while. I figured I would spend some time thinking and praying about it in a secluded spot, and our new camper fit the bill. After about 20 minutes or so I was still undecided and about to give up to go hang out with my friends. Instead I decided to give it a few more minutes and turned on the radio. WOW! At that very moment God spoke to me! Not with a clap of thunder or from a fiery bush, but in a way I could easily accept. The very first song that played was John Denver’s “I Want to Live.” As I sat there listening to that song, I realized that God was not telling me what to do, but he sure was making it easy for me to make a decision. By the end of the song, I knew that I wanted to “share what I can give”. As I walked in the house to tell my parents, my emotions got the better of me and I could barely tell them what had happened. I eventually got out that I had decided to volunteer that summer. As it turns out, that was one of the most rewarding summers of my life. There have been many other times when I know God has spoken to me. It’s when my inner voice from God says, “go talk with that person standing alone in the corner”, or “pick up that piece of trash”, or when I am on patrol, “pull over and shoot the breeze with that child.” Just recently, I was having supper with my parents, and mentioned that I don’t usually read horoscopes or believe in them, but that I read one recently that had a negative message about abandoning my hopes. Just then our waitress walked by and said, “don’t believe them, they [horoscopes] are all wrong!” Now that was God talking!

It may be an awesome voice coming from a fiery bush up on a mountain side, it may be a song on the radio, or it may be something as subtle as the confident voice of a waitress, but know this - God speaks to us…all we need to do is listen!

Below is a link to John Denver’s song “I Want to Live.” I thought you might enjoy it; I still love listening to this song!

3 comments:

  1. Thanks for not sharing with the world what a horrible sister you had during that time. I remember how much trouble I got in. Being 13 I thought it was funny. Now that I am a mom I realize it was not.
    Your much more matured sister--JuDean

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  2. Oh and I did and still do, love that song! Ju

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  3. I remember this time too. I remember hearing how much you helped the patient you were assigned to and got her to do so many things she had not done before. That is a great John Denver song--I had not heard it for years.

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