Sunday, June 8, 2008

God's Gestures Of Consolation Are Diverse

Lots of mail accumulated for me in Colorado while I was in Illinois and points east. upon coming home and picking it up, I found many kindly cards. One was especially intriguing.

It was from a Colorado address, and the sender was a woman I had never heard of. So a thought came to me: "Wouldn't it be neat if this person turned out to be one of
the impoverished young mothers for whom Jan made baby garments under the auspices of our church?"

Then I opened the envelope, and that's _exactly_ what it was. The woman told of receiving a blanket Jan had knitted, and said she would cherish it gratefully. A
piece of Jan's bread cast on the waters thus returns.

The picture on the front of the card featured a yellow butterfly. And on the long walk I took today, precisely at times when I had been thinking about the
heartwarming condolence card, two yellow butterflies at separate moments flew past close to me. This is the kind of occurrence I call "a postcard from Heaven;" and for
that matter, the first comforting "butterfly incident" I experienced after MARY'S passing also involved a yellow one. God likes to show patterns in events, letting us know that we are not struck in a coldly meaningless universe.

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