Innholdsfortegnelse for February - March 2018 i Mysterious Ways

Last February, I got a mysterious gift. The month before, I’d mentioned to Roberta Messner, a frequent Mysterious Ways contributor, how my mom is a big quilter and how much I love quilts. That passing remark gave Roberta an idea. She asked God to help her find the perfect quilt for me, one that was charming, well-made and full of love. Over Valentine’s Day weekend, Roberta walked into an antiques store in West Virginia and there it was—the quilt she’d prayed for. Made in the 1930s, with the pattern of a girl in a bonnet and hand-stitched hearts. Roberta took those hearts as a sign, bought the quilt and mailed it off. Her gift floored me. It was beautiful and strangely familiar too. About a month later, my mom saw…

Does the universe really send us messages? Gabrielle Bernstein is the author of May Cause Miracles, The Universe Has Your Back and the recently released Judgment Detox. In 2005, after a years-long battle with drug and alcohol addiction, she called out to the universe for help and got a message back loud and clear. In the time since, Gabrielle has dedicated her life to the study of miracles. She recently talked to Mysterious Ways about her spiritual awakening and the signs she’s received along the way.… Have you always been a spiritual seeker? My family is Jewish, and I was brought up very spiritual. I think I was always searching for God without realizing it. But I turned my back on faith in my twenties. I was running a PR…

Mom’s earrings. I just had to find them. I dug through the top drawer of my bureau, rummaging through my jewelry box and all the knickknacks that had accumulated over the years. Printed scarves, strands of beads, dried flowers. Where were those earrings? I could see them so clearly in my mind. Pink teardrop diamonds framed by rhinestones. Costume jewelry from the 1950s, certainly not worth much. Yet Mom had to have them. I’d been at my parents’ house earlier, filling their pill containers and washing a few dishes left over from the night before, when Mom brought them up. Again. She sat at the kitchen table, nib bling the corner of a jelly doughnut and licking her fingers like a little kid. Her wiry gray hair stood on end…

January 26, 2001. A national holiday in India. It was 8:40 A.M., and 25-year-old Viral Dalal (pronounced “We-rull D-lal”) was fast asleep when his bedroom door creaked open. He stirred to find his tall, broad-shouldered father staring down at him. “Time to wake up, Viral,” his father said. “Breakfast is ready.” It took Viral a second to place where he was. Not the tiny apartment he shared with two roommates in Teaneck, New Jersey. Instead, he was lying on a thin mattress in his family’s second-floor apartment in the tallest building in Bhuj, India. Viral had been back home for a month, and he still had to reorient himself every morning. He’d been living in the U.S., working and studying for his master’s degree in computer science, for more than a…

Howard Thurman’s life helped change history. But few people know of him. Some say the signs were there from the beginning. From the very moment Thurman was born, on November 18, 1899, in West Palm Beach, Florida. He came into the world with a caul—the membrane of the amniotic sac—covering his face. Folklore held that this rare occurrence was both a blessing and a curse, granting the ability to foretell the future but at the cost of living with a heavy heart. His grandmother, who had been born into slavery, was an experienced midwife. She acted quickly, piercing the baby’s earlobes while removing the membrane. The only way, it was thought, to break the curse. By the time Thurman was old enough to inquire about the holes in his ears,…

‘Am I a God who is only close at hand?’ says the Lord….‘Can anyone hide from me in a secret place? Am I not everywhere in all the heavens and earth?’ Jeremiah 23:23–24 ‘God is not bound by the same rules of nature that we are. He exists outside the limits of time and space. Beyond that, I do not know how he hears each of us separately. But what I do know is that he hears me individually because he speaks back to me daily.’ Carlos Whittaker, MOTIVATIONAL SPEAKER AND AUTHOR OF MOMENT MAKER We can sometimes fall into the trap of thinking of God as an old man in the sky having to juggle millions of telephones constantly ringing. But God is in us, and we are in…

My eyes were red, my nose stuffy, my throat sore. And now I was stuck on the crowded subway, standing between two New Yorkers in giant puffy winter coats. This was the last place I wanted to be when I was feeling crummy. But I had a big meeting at work. That meant riding an overheated train. Help me, Jesus. I need to relax! I closed my eyes, pretending I was anywhere else. A fancy spa’s eucalyptus steam room perhaps? I actually inhaled. If only… The subway lurched to a stop. A few people got out. About a million more got on, including a woman with an enormous plant. She headed my way, then crammed herself into a space by me, the plant slapping me in the face. Oh, come…

Gerry Short Could my husband, Dennis, and I ever move on after the death of our toy Manchester terrier, Snickers? People kept asking when we’d get another dog. But how could we when our grief was still so raw? A few months after Snickers died, Dennis and I were driving home from a round of golf. Suddenly I spotted something in the middle of a busy street. A little black dog. “Stop the car!” I shouted. I jumped out and scooped up the dog into my arms. The very next morning, I placed a lost-dog ad with our local paper. Just like that, I got a call from the dog’s owner, who lived only a mile away. She came right over. “What’s his name?” I asked her. “Snickers,” she said.…

Water. It was everywhere. I watched in horror from the staircase as the water gushed through the front door. The smell of salt water filled the air, mist hitting me in the face. I stepped off the last step into the ankle-deep flood and gasped. The level was rising. And fast. I had to get help. I sloshed through the flood to the living room. That’s when I saw him. Sitting in the middle of the room on top of a pillow, without a care in the world. A baby in a white bodysuit. He was about seven months old, chewing on his left hand as if he was teething. His jet-black hair hung over his ears, elf-like. The water swirled around him without ever making contact. As if some…

Every year, around February 14, I find myself bombarded with messages about soul mates. It pops up everywhere, from TV commercials to social media. And the takeaway is unavoidable: Soul mates are the main reason to celebrate love. I’ve never really believed in the whole soul mates thing—that there’s one person we’re destined to meet, fall madly in love with and obsess over for all eternity. What I have found are soul connections, friends who just seem to get you on an almost molecular level. Like my friend Sarah. We met in the seventh grade…and it was dislike at first sight. We were polar opposites. She was open, earnest and outgoing. I was guarded, rational and reserved. And yet, some-how, we became the best of friends. Nowadays, she lives in…

I woke up in a sweat and stared at the alarm clock. Two o’clock in the morning. Not again! This was the fourth night I’d been woken up by a dream. I kept seeing myself dangling from a cliff or driving toward the edge of one. I didn’t get it. Life was good. My husband, Paul, and I had been happily married for 20 years. Our kids and grandkids were thriving. So why was I having stress dreams all of a sudden? I’d seen the cliff again tonight. Only this time, I’d walked to the edge and stepped off. Instead of falling, I floated. I surveyed the peaceful world around me. Then I heard someone say, “Trust God. You’ll see things the way God does, and you won’t be afraid.”…

Charlotte, North Carolina Omega Brown wasn’t looking for love. The mother of four, now 82, hadn’t been on a date since her divorce in 1998. Two years ago, Omega came across the obituary of a man named Warner Bell. “I used to date his brother William,” she said to her daughter Cyndi. “He was the nicest guy.” They’d been introduced by William’s college professor in 1955 and had dated on and off until graduation. Cyndi was intrigued by Omega’s story. There was just something about the way her mother said William’s name, Cyndi told The Charlotte Observer. Cyndi and another relative tracked William down. He was thrilled to hear from Omega’s family. After the death of his wife in 1995, he’d prayed for another companion to love. Just before Valentine’s…

Mum called me into the kitchen the minute I got home from school. “Sit down, Sheila,” she said. “I want to tell you something.” She was so stern that I sat up straight in my chair. I was 16 at the time. Maybe she was about to impart some special life wisdom now that I was almost an adult. Everyone knew my mother gave the best advice. All the kids in our neighborhood came to see her whenever they had a problem. Mum fiddled with the pearls at her neck and smoothed the wrinkles in her plaid skirt. Finally she spoke. “Sheila, I want to prepare you,” she said, “for when you meet the Queen.” The Queen? I almost burst out laughing. Was this some kind of joke? But Mum…

High in the Peruvian Andes, some 60 miles south of Cusco, the ancient Incan capital, you’ll find a rainbow that never ends. It’s called Vinicunca, or Rainbow Mountain. The multicolored striations are the result of weather and mineralogical changes over millions of years, “similar to how a nail will rust,” according to geologist Trevor Nace. Want to make a visit? The hike to Vinicunca, at an elevation of about 17,000 feet, is not easy. Those who do make it, however, are in for a heavenly treat. Even before the Inca Empire, the “seven-colored mountain” was held sacred by the indigenous population, who still make yearly pilgrimages to the site today. Explore nature’s hidden surprises at Guideposts.org/NaturalWonders…

Hidden in Skagen, Denmark, you’ll find a church almost completely buried in sand. Called the Sand-Covered Church, it was built in 1387 to honor Saint Lawrence of Rome, the patron saint of seafarers. It stood tall at 72 feet. Until a phenomenon known as desertification swallowed Skagen. For some time, parishioners would dig out the church’s entrance. But by 1795, all that remained of the church was its 59-foot bell tower. Skagen soon found another purpose for it, though. The whitewashed tower became a navigational landmark for sailors. A reminder to all that faith, even when hidden, runs deep. Check out more miracle churches at Guideposts.org/MiracleChurches…

“I think the divine is like a huge smile that breaks somewhere in the sea within you, and gradually comes up again.”—JOHN O’DONOHUE John O’Donohue (1956-2008) was an Irish poet, scholar and priest, best known for his writings on Celtic mysticism and the natural world. He grew up in County Clare, a landscape that profoundly influenced his work. He called the west of Ireland “a huge wild invitation to extend your imagination…an ancient conversation between the land and sea.” In 1982, O’Donohue was ordained a Catholic priest and spent much of his time in solitude, contemplating the “the invisible world”—what we see with our souls, not our eyes. A topic he explored in his international bestseller Anam Ćara, which means “soul friend” in Gaelic. In 2000, O’Donohue left the priesthood…