"Watch For My Love Notes Today" - raising a blessing

Some stories are just too good to not share. This was one of those stories.

During a recent visit to the grocery store, our son asked if I would buy him a pack of bathtub markers. I tried my best to redirect his attention to the wide selection of bubble bath options, but he just absolutely had his heart set on these markers. So, I consented. When we brought them home, he couldn’t wait to eat his dinner and jump right into the bath! For the next hour, he excitedly called us into the bathroom over and over to show off his newest masterpiece.

Evidently they were a good find because the markers quickly became a source of family entertainment. Everyone wanted to try them out and it wasn’t long before I started to find little love notes left behind for the next occupant of the shower. A heart (or twenty) here. An “I love you” there. Even smiley faces and flowers. One morning, my son was taking a shower and he yelled, “Mommy, come look! Daddy left me a note in the shower.” I pulled back the curtain and sure enough, Daddy had left behind a note that read, “I love Ryan.” I looked down at Ryan and he was beaming with pride and joy at the message left just for him on our shower wall.

Later that afternoon, as I was taking my shower, I looked over to where the message had been just a few hours earlier. Water had sprayed in that direction during my son’s shower and all that was left was some red smears on the wall, but it was a beautiful reminder of a love note that touched the heart of one special little boy. As I sat in the pure joy of that memory, I heard my Heavenly Father say, “watch for my love notes today.”

I’m going to pause here for just a moment to share a piece of my journey with you. Over the course of the last year, God has been teaching me so much about listening for His voice and learning to lean in. He has been a guiding hand through a very difficult season and the more that I have learned to follow His direction and submit myself, the more that I have found tremendous blessings in His lessons, even the hard ones. Not only has he been blanketing me in peace and grace, but He has also been stirring an indescribable fire inside me and I have fallen in love with sitting in His presence. So, when He said, “watch for my love notes today,” you can just imagine my excitement… I literally couldn’t wait!

The plan for the afternoon was a short, rather uneventful hike. I had picked a spot that we had never explored and we were just going to follow the well-beaten trail and hope to find a wildflower field or a nice spot on the river. At first, the goal was simply to get out of the house for a few hours, to be honest. But now, I was really itching to hit the road… and the trail. I felt God interrupt my thoughts once again and remind me of a verse that He has been pressing on my heart lately…

“The Lord answered me: Write down the vision; write it clearly on clay tablets so whoever reads it can run to tell others. It is not yet time for the message to come true, but that time is coming soon; the message will come true. It may seem like a long time, but be patient and wait for it, because it will surely come; it will not be delayed.” Habakkuk 2:2-3

Because I feel Him looping me back to this verse regularly, I have made it a habit to document the moment that I hear His voice rather than waiting for the fruition of His promises. So on that particular afternoon, I ran downstairs and quickly typed out what I had heard. I ended the short note with… “I heard God speak into my heart… “watch for my love notes today.” Oooooo…. this should be fun!”

On the way to the trail, I felt God urging me to share the message with my five-year-old son. Our conversation went something like this…

“Ryan, what do you know about God?”

That he loves us.

“How do you know that?”

Because you tell me.

“So you only know He loves you because I tell you that He does?”

Yes.

“Well did you know that God speaks to us?”

No.

“He does. God told me today that He plans to leave us love notes to show us that He loves us. Can you help me watch for them?”

Okay.

Soon after, he fell asleep and I drove the rest of the way to the trailhead in my own thoughts. What kind of love notes would God leave?

When we got to the trailhead, I paused for a moment to remind Ryan, “watch for God’s love notes today and let me know if you see any.”

The trail was littered with heart rocks. And, if you know me, you know I love heart rocks. But these heart rocks were insanely perfect and beautiful. They were amazing!

“Look, Ryan… so many heart rocks! God left us love notes!”

Oh…

And then I felt God whisper… there’s more.

Further down the hike, we took a very small detour to the edge of a cliff. As we looked across the valley, I noticed that the pine tree I was standing next to had the shape of a heart carved out. It must have been there for some time because the tree had actually healed around it. While I’m used to seeing carvings in aspen trees, it is very unusual to see a carving in a pine tree. In all my time hiking around our area, I had never seen something like this before.

“Look, Ryan… a heart in the tree! God left us another love note!”

To which he replied, but didn’t someone else carve that heart in the tree?

“Yes, baby… but God guided us to this tree to show us another love note.”

And then I felt God whisper… there’s more.

I distinctly remember joking back to God at this point… “More? Should I be looking for a heart shaped cloud?” I laughed to myself as I redirected everyone back to the main trail and we kept going.

After a while, I announced to my clan that we would be turning around soon because it was getting late and we needed to get back to the truck and head home.

“Can I just climb this one big rock before we go back?” my son asked.

“Of course.”

I stood there as they climbed the rock from all different angles. Some worked. Others didn’t. We laughed and took pictures. It had been a fun and beautiful day for a hike.

There… I heard God whisper as I looked past my son and into the woods.

“What?”

Walk there.

“In the woods?”

The thought of Him directing me into the woods felt strange, but as soon as the doubt entered my head, I felt Him press again.

About this time, you are likely thinking this story sounds very odd. Don’t get me wrong… It was a very strange moment for me too. This entire hike I had not left the established trail – not once – and yet I clearly felt Him pressing me to walk straight past that large rock and directly into the woods.

I hesitated for a split second, but then I remembered something that shifted my entire line of thinking. If I have learned nothing else in the past year, I have learned this: It is in the moments when I have trusted His voice and obediently leaned in that I have learned the most about God’s love for us.

So, I walked…

…in a straight line…

…directly past that large rock…

…into fairly dense woods…

…for about 30 yards…

…and quite literally walked straight to this…

Another love note from God!

Now, let me share with you why this love note was so incredibly significant…

If you know me, you know that although I have lived in Colorado for much of my life, this was my first year shed hunting. Shed hunting is when you search the woods for antlers that have been naturally shed by deer and elk over the winter and very early spring months. There’s a real art to it and although I did a lot of research and gave it my best shot, I was struggling. At one point during a shed hunt, I caught myself asking God, “can you help me find one?” And then I immediately felt ashamed. With all the important healing going on in my heart, much less the incredible needs of others, how could I be asking God for help finding shed?

Fast forward to today, a random day, but a day when God specifically told me to watch for his love notes and here I was standing over the kind of find that I would maybe see once in a lifetime. This was not shed antlers… This was a fully intact 4×4 bull elk skull. I wish I could adequately express my level of excitement at that very moment. It was not the gift that was in front of me that made my heart leap the most… it was the overwhelming joy that came with the realization that this was a love note just for me. Me. He loves me so much that He gifted me something very specific, and very special.

For a long moment, this girl that has no shortage of topics to chat about at any time, any day, with anyone was left… completely speechless.

Once I found my bearings again, I turned to my son with the biggest smile. I didn’t think the moment could get any better, but as my son smiled back at me, I heard him say with total delight, “God really did leave us love notes today!”

Yes, He did, baby. Yes, He did.

You better bet that I hauled that skull back to the tree with the heart and took a picture of the two together. This skull will now hang in a special place in our home and serve as a daily reminder to our family that…

God is very real.

God cares about the little, as well as the big.

And God delights in showing us how much He loves us.