Omni what?

Understanding God’s omnipresence had a whole new eternal perspective this week as I engaged in a virtual high school reunion on Facebook.  After 22 absent years, this is what a dear friend messages me yesterday:

“By the way, you were never lost. Maybe gone for a while. But you were always there :)It may be a long time ago, but I remember those days like yesterday. I need those stories in my life. They were good times.”

How true that is! Friendship, like our relationship with God, can be physically distant for any amount of time and as unseen as our Lord is, especially on down days, but it doesn’t diminish the significance of the experience of the person in your life. People struggle with “religion” because they feel we are walking with an invisible man believing an outdated book. Not so! OMINIPRESENCE means God is always with us and His stories guide us today as they did up to thousands of years ago when someone was inspired to write them down with a passionate purpose to lead future generations.

The friend requests piled in when I was finally “tagged” in a yesteryear photo posted on Facebook in 2009. Tears filled my eyes reading the comments made about me during a huge time of transition in my life when I would have no idea what positive words were being spoken of me somewhere in cyberspace. People who once filled my daily being wondered where I was out of a fond memory, shared experience and desire to reconnect always with the joy they felt in the season we were physically together.  Laughter ensued in my soul as I read how they remembered the silly things I did and guessed where I might be now.  Even if I had not messaged one of my closest classmates in April, nostalgia alone would still spark the idea real sisterhood was out there and we are loved (what my scrapbooks are for).

This spring my son, excited about teen years and upcoming high school days, had fun sifting through my yearbook pages of a variety of school books. To add to the experience, I looked up one of the girls from my first high school on the social media site. After moving every two years since 1992, I didn’t know what to say as my mind struggled to remember 1990. 

Finally this week her reply comes in apologizing for the delay? What delay? God’s timing is always ON TIME. He could not have picked a better season in my life than now to show me people out there do care about me, think about me and wish me well. Right now I’m right in the fog of spiritual war again; a battle started this summer. As I lean more toward God’s direction in life serving family and making time for friends in these recent months, the enemy seemed to seep into my life through other avenues. This week in particular my parents are here to share the reunion as we celebrate my son's 15th birthday. There's lots of memories celebrated and new ones being made.

Settling into the location I live now has been the hardest transition so far but the one God surely led me to. He knows I answered His call in 2008,  packed up “Abraham style,” short sold a house and followed His decisions since then. Miracles have truly happened – perfect school for my son's particular needs found, exact house we needed bought, prayers answered, church community discovered matching a mission God put on my heart during seminary, family reunited in one state and so much more! Certainly I was made to be here.

Many times though I need that reminder. Many times I need to look above for His view because if I look around things may not appear as put in place as they are. As I wrote my book documenting my 2008 discovery of my life, I realized God’s fingerprints ordered every step since conception. But many times I had to step out, look up, to really see God has got this all under control on a very mysterious time schedule that is always “on time.” There is so much unseen! And if you look that up in the Bible, its called faith - believing in what may not be visible because an invisible force field called Trinity has our lives covered beyond our imagination!