pennies from heaven

 "In times of great stress and great joy,  you are completely surrounded by loved ones in the unseen who adore and support you, wanting to share whatever you're experiencing.

So at those times, if you can remember to be calm and quiet and go within, you'll feel them, you'll remember them, and you'll benefit most from their presence." 

The past few weeks has been stressful for my husband and I. After losing his job, he fell into a deep depression. Though the skills he has and learned at his old job will keep him employed, many employers now want someone who can "do it all," use them up and move on to the next unsuspecting worker. Such is life after a recession.
My nights have been spent in either restless slumber, with periods of wakefulness that has me replaying scenes of despair over and over, or else I sleep the sleep of the unconscious, with dreams that are more like nightmares running through my mind.
Last night I awoke at 11:30 p.m. and could not fall back to sleep. So I used that time to pray. First, I said a prayer to the Blessed Mother Mary. I followed that up with an "Our Father," except that I changed the words to include gratitude: "thank you for the daily bread that you have given to us, and thank you for forgiving us our trespasses, as we forgive one another. Thank you for not leading us into temptation, and thank you for delivering us from the evil one." I then asked St. Therese, the Little Flower to send a shower of roses and to wonderful St. Francis, for helping me to understand that even in simplicity, I know that all will be well. I fell asleep after that, for five straight hours!

This morning, I took my puppy out for his morning walk. We follow several different routes and being a very humid day, I wanted to go a shorter, but still difficult route because it has a hill that is great on the heart muscles! However, I heard a "voice" inside my head tell me to instead head straight home. Home? Ok, good idea, maybe the exertion isn't healthy on a muggy day such as today.

As my dog pondered by a stop sign, I looked down. There was a penny...and another one! I picked them up, giving thanks to God for hearing my prayers from last night. I felt safe...protected. My husband has a job interview today and I took this as a sign that all would be well, regardless of the outcome. Then, I looked down again...another penny! I giggled as I picked it up...and then..another one! All around me were pennies, that just seemed to appear, as they were not all scattered about before. Eventually I had ten pennies. Is that all, I asked God. "Look again," I heard. Ok, I did! And there were three more pennies, in places I had ALREADY looked! Again I gave thanks. To you, maybe it's "just pennies," but to me, this is a sign from above. I laughed and thought, "a twenty dollar bill would be real nice, too, Lord!" I started to walk  towards home and there was a dime! "Twenty dollars, eh?" I heard the "voice" say. "You sure are greedy!" "I know," I silently offered, "but it doesn't hurt to ask!" I added the dime to my collection, coming home with a whopping twenty four cents. The sun was just turning the sky a brilliant red as, in the west, a full moon was just setting. Two wonderful views of the small miracles that is there for all of us to see and rejoice over.
A new day. A new beginning.
Thank you, God...for everything!