Wind Chimes

So I have been visiting this life group with a friend I met in a grief share group. Mostly older couples but I like it. I don’t get so anxious and they don’t really know me so I don’t feel judged yet like with my old life group who has gotten to know me over time.  No huge spiritual awakening but its nice to hang out with nice people and feel a little safe. I don’t usually feel safe around people at all so I am working on it.

And now that you have the background, here is the story. . .

Evidently on a night I missed due to being at clinicals a new “thing” was started. A little wind chime that I honestly could not describe will be passed around now. A sweet social worker started this I think and explained that this would be passed around to those who maybe needed to see god moving and be encouraged and that sort of thing. As she shared she looked at me and all I could hear was my own voice in my head saying please not me . . . please not me . . . please not me . . . but it was me. She said with excitement that she had recently graduated and new the stress of the season I was in. And stress yes, but really this meant a commitment to come back at least one more time and I hate commitments. It also seemed a little hokey to me but im just that person. A true cynic. So the plan, leave it in the bag in my car until the following Monday night at which point I would pawn it off on someone else who would likely be happy to take it.

Plan FAIL. I got sick and the lady who I went with was busy Monday night. Now I was very sick. I can usually fake it but even the next day I was sent home from work because I couldn’t fake it well enough. Well, maybe they sent me home because I was sick and needed to take care of myself but they knew. So when I say I couldn’t go to that life group, I really couldn’t go. In fact I had forgotten all about the silly little wind chime and that I wanted it off my hands. Which was actually one of my fears to begin with. Here I was the first person to get this thing and I forgot to bring it back.

I mean really was I supposed to see the wind blow a wind chime and make noise and get all warm and fuzzy thinking that god clearly loved me because of that. Silly. Then I remembered and hoped that it was still somewhere in my car. But instead of that being a passing thought; just remembering that I needed to get that back and figure out who I was going to pass it on to I am still thinking about it an hour later.

I am a cynic. A pretty good one I think. If god was real and loved me why would he not just help me out with the real issues I have in my life. I am willing to fight but clearly cant do this on my own. So thanks but no thanks I don’t care if a wind chime tossed in the wind makes a little noise. But there was something else for me to here. A wind chime in a gift bag in the floorboard of my car wouldn’t make much noise but for me it did.

Just the thought of a wind chime being tossed in the wind itself speaks. I say most of us at one point or another feel tossed about by the winds of change and pain and this life. I needed to know its okay to make a little noise when things hurt and even that slanging into a friend or two in that process can make a beautiful sound.

But then there is the god stuff. Frankly I still don’t know where I stand on all of that. Its just so hard for me to believe that a god is real but to add that he is good and loving. It is just too much for me to take in. As much as I want to know these things I just don’t know how to believe. And this is the thought that came to me as a realized the fate of the bag still abandoned carelessly in my car. I never gave the wind chime a chance. For all I know it could have climbed down from its place of hanging and danced or fixed my house while I was gone. Maybe I would have gotten the much needed nightmare free sleep that I so long for. But maybe even a chime at just the right moment would have done the trick. But I never gave it a chance. I kept the wind chime wrapped up in tissue paper in a gift bag in the back of my car with no thought of it at all for over a week. I am a jerk I know, this gift was given to me with the purest of hearts but im so hardened that I couldn’t even give it a try and never had any intention to either.

So I will take the wind chime out of the bag and hang it to listen with this extra week I have been given but how does one take this god business out of the bag of doubt and disbelief and leave it out until one can see? I have tried the god thing and watched and waited but the things I need most there hasn’t even been the slightest of movement.