Christine's blogs

When God knocked on the door of my heart and I let Him in, I naively thought life would be easier. While my newfound hope in Him was great, my life, not so much.

Thankfully, I grew more mature in my faith than this. I am grateful that God was more interested in changing my worldly heart and mind than circumstances. But as a spiritual infant then, I struggled to understand how my desire to please Him as a woman of service to others was not an easy success.

After all, I gave up my wish to work in the advertising industry. I faithfully held to a new conviction that making people think they couldn’t live without things they didn’t need was a manipulative profession. I also turned down a job offer to write fortunes in cookies, rejecting the occultist nature of such things.

Instead, to serve, I took a job as a counselor at a crisis hotline for youth. Barely a teen called, but many adults suffering mental health issues that didn’t really want referrals to get help, did. Lots of calls were from pranksters.

Still, I shared with many that God was their true source of help. But I found myself regularly reprimanded by my supervisor for proselytizing. I said nothing as I stared at a plaque of a Bible verse above her head. This was a hotline with Christian roots. It made no sense to me.

But even more unsettling was a coworker who told me every time I mentioned God he wanted to murder me. He graphically laid out how he would do it. All of the stress caused IBS I had been diagnosed with to double me over in pain.

I lacked the wisdom, insight and maturity to not personalize everything as a commentary on my incompetence to please God. I didn’t understand that Satan wanted to wrest my soul back into the pit! I obsessed with wondering if God wanted me to quit my job or do better? Should I accept defeat that I couldn’t handle the hostility and chastising and find a new profession?

Adding to my professional woes was a stressful relationship with a man I met at my church. I believed that just because he was a Christian, it was a foregone conclusion that we were right for each other! My naivete mingled with what I took as the prophetic words of my Bible instructor. He told me that he saw us “engaged in four months.” That kept me working at pleasing a man with huge expectations and not a lot of respect, Christian or not.

God seemed so silent. One day as I stood on the platform waiting for a train to take me to my job, I prayed, ‘Lord, show me a tangible sign of hope from You with a butterfly.’ Suddenly one softly fluttered by, lifting my spirits with what I believed was a visible answer to a simple prayer from a spiritual infant. With continued prayers for a visual reminder of His presence, and more sightings of butterflies, I began to feel a comforting, special connection to God with these winged creatures.

One afternoon I was feeling particularly alone and dejected on a lunch break while seated at an outdoor table at work. A butterfly descended out of windy skies. The delicate, orange, gold and black insect perched on my handbag for at least a minute or two before rising back up overhead and fluttering out of view. I thanked and praised God, and returned to my job renewed by hope for the afternoon.

Weeks later, on my way to a friend’s party where the boyfriend who by then broke up with me was also invited, I prayed for God to calm my anxieties. Suddenly there appeared a large butterfly that descended to hand level and kept pace with me in companionship for the whole two blocks I walked to that party.

Six months later, I lost the job and found out my nephew had leukemia. On a family trip to Disney World, I felt like the saddest person in the enchanted kingdom. I prayed for a sign of hope from God but laughed at myself for wanting butterflies at night while my family and I waited for a parade to pass. But to my astonishment, no less than a dozen dancers atop a float swayed and fluttered by, dressed in a dazzling rainbow of colorful wings with a tribute to the beautiful butterfly.

Like a child who looks up at her father and pleads, “Dad, tell that story again,” the butterfly is to this day a sign of hope from the Lord of His presence and care for me.

My nephew was healed and shortly after, I met my husband who loves me unconditionally. God gave me the greatest job I could ever hope for raising two, beautiful, adopted children. And the first time I saw my son on video, he lay on a mat with a huge butterfly on it and one on his t-shirt! What more confirmation did I need that he was my baby?