A Silly Scarf

I’m Going to tell you something kind of stupid.  I’m going to tell you this in the hope you get it.  

When I was very young and beginning to wonder at all the various tidbits I learned in Bible class I began to hope for a glimpse of something unearthly, miraculous, something our Bible heroes witnessed in the thick of it.  I’d never been saved from hungry lions, never saw the earth flooded, never spoke with one of God’s messengers.  I wasn’t led by day with a cloud and not with a fire by night.

As a child who thought in very literal childish terms, I wanted to see and know God.

So, there was this ridiculous scarf belt, maybe it was orange with a paisley print, a cast off from my mother’s wardrobe the decade before. It wasn’t even mine, but I had been playing with it, dressing up.  It was a mere single item in the junk heap that was my messy room.  At bedtime, before my mother came in to make sure I was in bed, I prayed.  I prayed a very silly, childish prayer but with a yearning to know God was with me, for sure.  I gently placed the scarf, hanging over the back of a chair in my room.  I asked God to move it, then I would know for sure.  Ridiculous, right?  This isn’t going to be made into the next “Heaven is for Real” so don’t get your hopes up.

I stared at the scarf a few moments, waiting, hoping, the air around me quiet and empty.  Nothing happened.  After a couple disappointing minutes, where I stood frozen in a filthy room staring at a scarf and unwilling to share my private prayed hopes I was told to go to bed, so I gave up.  The next morning, I didn’t remember anything about it, my attention span was shorter then than it is now, if you can imagine that.  

When I got home from school that day I noticed the scarf was missing.  I don’t really know what got into me, except I’ve always been a touch over sensitive and a little dramatic at times, but this literally put the fear of God in me.  Perhaps it was because of all the emotional weight I put into a silly request and a scarf, but I kind of freaked out.  I told you this was a ridiculous story.  Hang in there.

I told my mother what I did, what had happened.  Likely as the mother of 4 she had no time for something so ridiculous and I remember her shaking her head, rolling her eyes and telling me with fear in my eyes and frustration in her own “I moved it!”. 

 This didn’t exactly ease my fear, but it didn’t exactly make me feel worse.  

I haven’t ever shared that story, though I’ve tried, because it’s a stupid story.  It had a purpose though.

I will always remember it as the day I saw that God often works through His people.  There’s a ton of things I’ve forgotten from that time in my life but for some reason I remember that vividly.  Maybe for the same reasons I randomly remember my phone number from when we first moved back to Texas as the short and top set my Mother bought at Sam’s that had cute rows of cactus and roses up and down them I was wearing when I fled a middle school boy that called me “Debbie the Dog”.  I remember it like I remember when my Mother suddenly one day, got that "fun mom" look in her eye as she asked me if I wanted to start to learn how to drive and take us around the block after grocery shopping and how potatoes, once captive, freed themselves hurriedly and loudly from their plastic bag during my super smooth attempt at braking and rolled under my feet all the way from the back of an aerostar minivan to the floorboard of the "driver's" seat.  It was a long time until I got to drive again.  

The other day I ran into someone that I went to High School with.  It was a positive experience but an odd one.  After figuring out who each other was, we shared some concern over another individual we both knew and that once High School boy now grown man, stood and prayed, unabashedly and beautifully with me out loud square in the middle of the Farmer’s Market.  It truly was a God moment, although when I told my sister about it later she seemed to think it sounded like I needed to be disheveled and yelling in the parking garage of the airport, holding signs about the end times.

Not everything is that BIG, unusual or different.  I really, truly think that a lot of how God speaks to us is through us and our every day, seemingly monotonous routines.  How we speak and how we are spoken to, noticing a comforting smell on the breeze that reminds us of “that time when…”, realizing someone near you is going through the exact same grim and very real struggles you do because you decided to be honest and frank with each other and stand up for one another instead of pretending that you’re both “fine”.

What was then my mother picking up a silly scarf has become a phone call from someone dear to me when I’m distressed, a random hug and word of encouragement when praying through a really bad day, a sparkle in my children’s eyes when they’re telling me about how impressed they are with the cold front and the smell of wood smoke in the air, how that lifts me with joy and hope. 

The other day I was having a really bad day and feeling really discouraged.  I posted what I saw within moments of doing it a silly, over personal and vague request for prayers via Facebook.  I got a call from someone I love, who is incredibly dear to me, who really wanted to know how they could help and if I, silly old me was OK, how that touched my heart!  I received texts, prayers and sweet comments.  Like an emotional get-well gift basket, it was a day of nice gestures, knowing looks and heart felt prayers, the real kind.  It was a day full of great, simple, kind moments.  It was a day full of silly scarves.  

So, for whatever reason I will always remember that stupid scarf when I think I need something BIG to happen to get my eyes back on God. 

 It was a good reminder that God works through us and we are a part of His plan.  Based on days like I had last week, I’m telling you there isn’t one single kind word or gesture that doesn’t make a difference so, don’t be INdifferent.  In our day and age, it’s hard to be still and quiet and listen to God.  Thankfully, His work through those precious people in our lives is often more immediately visible and bring us back to Him.  

So, that’s my silly story.  Don’t discredit the small stuff.  It matters, every ounce of good matters.  

Until next time, when I hope to provide something a little less serious by way of an amazing recipe!