"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."
Hebrews 11:1 (KJV)

This is not my usual blog post, and I’ll warn you now that it is going to be religious, so if that is the sort of thing that offends you then stop reading now.

I was raised Catholic. There is a lot about the Catholic religion that I don’t agree with and a lot that I do. I don’t attend church services on a regular or even an irregular basis. My husband and I had our marriage blessed in the Catholic church a few years ago and it’s probably been since then that I’ve stepped foot into a church…maybe a Christmas Eve mass, but I can’t remember. I don’t believe that someone HAS to go to mass in order to believe. Again, I don’t agree with a lot of the Catholic beliefs.

If I could pick a religion I don’t know which one I’d pick.

I do, however, believe in God. I pray to God on a semi regular basis. I believe in angels and saints and heaven and hell and everything in between. I believe that what one person does is between them and God and who the heck am I to judge? And, although maybe not a popular belief, I do believe that in the end whatever you call your God, we’re all praying to the same being…for the most part.

With all of that being said, I have 2 stories to share that my mom shared with me this past weekend.

My mom has always told us that if we were worried about something such as getting up in the morning at a certain time or getting us through something difficult that we should pray to our Guardian Angel and they will help us with whatever it is. I’ve done it and it works – every time. I’ve even heard my name said out loud when I was home alone, or heard knocking on my door, or a different loud noise startles me. Somehow I always wake up when I’ve prayed like this.

So the story – My mom, my aunt and my granny get together every other weekend and do various things. Their outings usually include shopping, a meal and a movie. My aunt, I guess, has a thing about making people wait behind her while driving and looking for a street or a parking space and will a lot of times pull over to let people go around her. The thought of someone waiting behind her stresses her out. Weird, but it’s her thing.

They ordered food from a restaurant in a downtown area where parking is off the street and the street is only one lane either way and gets congested easily. My mom wanted to just jump out of the car, run in to get the food and then come back out while my aunt drove around the block. My aunt was really stressing out about this because there was a possibility that someone behind her would have to wait if she had to wait in the street because there wasn’t a spot open while they were waiting for my mom.

So my mom told her that she’d say a prayer to their dead brothers (they have 3 brothers who died right after or shortly after birth) and their father, who’s also deceased to help with the smooth transaction. Now, I guess my aunt doesn’t believe in praying to any other being except for God – again, her thing – but my mom reassured her it would all turn out good and not to worry. She said her prayer, jumped out of the car, ran in to get the food – just as the lady was walking it up, mind you – paid, and walked out just as my aunt was pulling around the corner and someone was backing up out of a spot.

My mom got into the car and said, “there, look…it all worked out. I was coming out, and there is your open parking spot in case you had to wait”. Then my aunt said something along the lines of, “don’t you think that’s the devil’s work?” – remember, she doesn’t believe in praying to anyone but God. My mom probably just said whatever and laughed.

Then, as they were pulling away…in the sky was a triple rainbow.

Now, imo…totally a sign from above, from their brothers…like look, we’re here with you. My mom agrees.

I just don’t believe in coincidences when things happen like that!

Ok…second story.

My uncle’s best friend was visiting from out of state. He wasn’t feeling well…said that it felt like the world was closing in on him and going dark…he felt this way while driving, so he pulled over and asked my uncle to drive him to the ER. (drive his 70,000 car, mind you…so obviously something was WRONG)

They get to the ER and do tests and find out that he has a brain hemorrhage. I don’t know if they operated or what happened, but he slipped into a coma and it was determined that he was brain dead. They kept him on the machines for another 48 hours (I think they give younger people this time to see if they recover or something like that…my mom wasn’t sure either).

When there was no change in his condition or brain function they made the difficult decision to take him off the machines that were essentially keeping him alive.

Or so they thought. He was breathing on his own and wouldn’t die.

There is a priest who was a pastor at our church for a very long time and he’s a friend of the family now and so my granny and uncle asked if he would come see my uncle’s friends to give him last rites.

When he got to the hospital, they told the family there was a priest there to see my uncle’s friend and they said the only priest they’d let see him was Father ___ and that was who it was! So the priest went back and prayed and gave my uncle a passage to read out loud to his friend.

As my uncle finished the passage…all of his friend’s monitors went silent and he finally passed.

Again…I just don’t believe in coincidences when things happen like that!

I’m not overly religious like I said in the beginning. I believe in God. I believe in angels and saints. I believe in heaven and hell. However when hearing stories like that, and holding on to the few stories I have of my own, I just have to say that God is great and He is around us wherever we are. And I’m not one to ever say things like that out loud to others.

Miracles happen every day. Stop and pay attention to the little things.

There was a time in my life when I felt trapped and wasn’t sure if decisions made were right. I just felt lost and unsure of everything. So I let it all go and gave it to God. May sound corny, but with the burden of worry off my chest, I felt better and things all started falling into place and I felt secure in my situation and that I had made the right decision.

And things always seem to work out. I believe we’re not given more than we can handle, even if handling it seems difficult, in most cases you will see it through to the other side and everything will be ok. For me, this has happened time and time again.

Funny how two random but totally connected stories can restore someone’s faith in God and just bring things all back into perspective. Well, they did for me anyways.

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Have you had your own experiences such as these? Please feel free to share them in the comments! I’d love to read your Evidences of Faith. ☼ ♥ ☺