Nothing Says "I Love You" Like...

...the little signs and love notes He leaves you every day

Oct 26, 2023

If you’re a Catholic churchgoer, you hear this a lot from the pulpit: “God loves you. Jesus loves you. You are His beloved. All He wants is to be with you.”

You get that, at least intellectually. But what does it actually LOOK like when you’re God’s beloved? How can you tell that He loves you?

Here are some personal experiences, starting with a story and then some photos:

Circa 2005, I was in deep spiritual desolation, “the dark night of the soul,” as they call it. I was coming down hard from my New Age high where I had constantly felt God around me.

Suddenly, I was back from my carefree hippie life to a 9-to-5 job, with a husband and a little kid and a lot more routine than I was comfortable with. I feared that I’d lost my connection with God; it was a horrible, empty feeling.

One morning, after tossing and turning at night, I got up at 5:00 AM and went to a nearby waterfall, one of my favorite spots in nature. For 45 minutes, I sat by the river crying, “Where are you? Why won’t you talk to me anymore?” But there was no answer.

Dejected, I made my way home and was about to go back to bed when two-year-old A. toddled into the bedroom, clutching something in his tiny hand. “Here, Mommy,” he said earnestly, holding out his hand. “For you. Has MEANING.”

I raised my eyebrows. Meaning?! Such a big, unusual word for a two-year-old.

He dropped the small object into my hand. It was a penny, and of course it said “In God We Trust.”

This is just one of the many ways God speaks to us and lets us know how He feels. The secret is, you have to LOOK for them.

Ask God to reveal Himself to you. Keep your eyes and ears open and look for the unmistakable signs of God’s presence. Once you learned to see them, they’re everywhere… and you will feel like you’re living in some kind of fairytale reality.

Don’t belittle the experience, don’t rationalize it away, don’t second guess it. Be playful, have fun with it. Don’t take everything so seriously. God does have a sense of humor. Heck, He INVENTED humor.

Start regaining the awe and wonder you had as a child (just like the Bible says we should). It’s an amazing way to live. And once you’re used to it, it’s the ONLY way to live.

Here are some more examples from my own file…

A little sign of affection on a cold morning after Mass:

A sweet reminder on my dining table (I do have a rainbow maker in my window, but it usually only makes stripy rainbows, not hearts):

A glorious sunrise in Steubenville (yes, you’re allowed to act as if He made this JUST for YOU—and don’t forget to thank Him!):

Saying hi when I’m engrossed in my favorite game:

Sending some winged friends along:

A rainbow angel in a Kroger’s parking lot. This was my “Attagirl” right after I gave away my favorite rosary to some stranger like He’d told me to:

A special “Attagirl” sunset after a “Bring your own food” church event where I gave my soup to a homeless man:

All the links in the first decade of my silver Rosary turning to gold the day I launched this blog (incidentally, this was also the decade I’d been praying the Surrender Novena on):

An answer to the question which Marian devotion I should pick for Lent (150 is the number of Hail Marys in a full Rosary). I wasn’t playing, the tiles just dropped like that!