You know, the Bible is full of stories where God directly interacts with His people. Prayers are answered, miracles are preformed, God's voice is heard, and His angels come to visit with people. Some think that this kind of interaction doesn't happen anymore, as if God has become mainly a distant "watcher" of what happens on earth. I wonder how often people pray with full confidence that He will actually respond. Not that I'm judging others for a lack of faith -- the Lord knows that I'm guilty of this too.

Yet, nothing could be further from the truth. I cannot count how many times God has spoken to me and answered my prayers, from simple to more complex things. I could write a whole book about the undeniable influence of God in my life in the short few years since I got to know Him, not to mention all of the stuff that He did for me prior.

The reason I'm telling you all of this is because it happened again today. God answered my prayer in such a wonderful way that I just had to share, in hopes that maybe you can too benefit from it. You see, there's nothing special about me. There's no reason why God should show favor to me about anyone else. I'm just a human being and I make mistakes. So, keep in mind that it's not just me -- God is more than willing to have a very close relationship to you too!

Here's what happened:

Lately things have been rather rough. By lately, I mean the past few years. The constant trials can really wear a person down and affect their faith, so much so that you can begin to forget how much God really loves you and how close He really is. The couple weeks has been a bit of an eye-opening time for me, as God provides a ton of reminders of His presense and how much I really need him. It's been nice. After staying up late talking to Him last night, I woke up feeling really at peace this morning. I had no idea it'd get better, though.

At my house, we always have an abundance of food for the birds and little critters out back. On occassion, though, I fall a bit behind in refilling it. Today was a good example of that. The seed had been out for a couple days, so I thought that I should go and fix that. It just didn't seem fair for me to be relaxing at home and eating while they were out searching for food. So, I did.

The weather is nice for a fall day, the sun was shining, and it was warm enough not to need a coat. After filling the feeders with the seed and nuts, I decided to do something that I hadn't done in a long time: brush off a place on the steps and sit out back in hopes of seeing some of God's wonderful little ones up close. I used to do this all of the time and found it such a great way to connect with God, but hadn't really found the time this year with all that's been going on. Still, I wasn't really sure if it would be overly successful due to the fact that there wasn't a bird in sight because the food was gone.

So, I sat and waited. 5 minutes passed, 10 minutes passed, nothing showed up. Normally I'd just give up and go inside, but something stopped me. I decided to pray. What better place to do so, surrounded by God's trees and grass, right? It wasn't a long prayer, or even one where I got down on my knees. All I said was, "God? Please? Just one little bird, is all I ask. So I can see it and feel closer to you. Not just for me, though. The bird needs to eat too." That was it. I had a moment of doubt, thinking that God wouldn't answer a prayer so simple and so trivial as to make a bird come and eat when I ask. Yet, I waited still and believed that, regardless of how unimportant the prayer was, God at least heard it.

That's when it happened. Within 2 minutes of praying, I heard a chirp and looked up to see a little chickadee fly down to the feeder infront of me. Immediately I knew that it was God's answer -- God's way of saying "Hi Sarah. I heard you and I'm with you right now." Oh, how amazing that was in that very moment! Seeing that little bird eating only a few feet from me. I thanked God and felt content. That is, until more arrived. Before my eyes I watched as 3 chickadees flew in, then a few sparrows with them, a couple of juncoes, and finally a squirrel hopped down the fence and ran up to the door infront of me. In a matter of minutes, my backyard went from completely empty, to being full of probably 30 birds and a squirrel, all of them happily flying around me, eating, and chirping away.

It was awesome -- not that a word can really describe it. It wasn't my first time seeing birds like this, but it was so much more special because I knew it was a direct message from God. It was a gift of love from the Creator of all that exists, given to me personally, just because I asked. How cool is that? The simplest of things can mean so much in any relationship or friendship, but it's on a total different level when it's coming from God.

So, you see, God really does care about us all. He's not some distant being who we pray to but never speaks back. He might not do so in the way we always expect, but He always does. All we have to do is turn to Him and believe that He hears us! God wants to be near you. He wants you to know that you are special to Him and that He loves you in a way that He doesn't love anyone else. This world and it's sinful state has caused there to be a veil between Him and us, which prevents us from seeing Him and all of His angels with our eyes, but that doesn't mean it's not there. No matter what you pray about, no matter what is going on in your life and in your heart right now, God knows and God cares. Remember that. The message that He gave me today wasn't meant just for me, it was meant that I could share it with everyone. We aren't alone, even when we feel it!

Love and Blessings Always,
Sarah

(P.S. To all of you who used to follow my blogs, I apologize for my silence the past year or so. I want you to know that I'm still around and, on occasion, still check in on you guys. I hope God's been blessing you!)

Hey Everyone,

This is just a very quick post before I go to bed. I know it's been a long time since I was last active here and I'm sorry for that. It's a long story  really, one that I'd rather not get into right now. Just wanted to let you all know I'm still around and doing okay, just very very busy right now.

Which leads me to a exciting announcment. Some of you may remember my 'Weekly Praise' project that I was doing last year. Well, one of the things I'm currently so busy with is a website for it.  I'm so very excited. God has been inspiring me over the past year a lot in regards to this. I'd started a site for it on Wordpress back in February, but never completed it. Now I'm well on my way to finishing a completely self-built website. It's going to be so awesome. I can't wait till it's done.

For now, please check out the following links:

http://www.lettherebepraise.com - The official website. It's still coming soon, but the entry page is up with the logo and such.

http://twitter.com/LetThereBPraise - The official twitter account for it.

I'll try and post here on occasion and also will keep you all posted on what's happening with the website. Already have a lot of interest towards it and it's not even done!

I hope you're all blessed and doing well.

Blessings and Love,
Sarah

Hey Everyone,

I just wanted to explain why I haven't been around the past while. Especially with my weekly praise thing. It saddens me each time that I think I've neglected it.

I'm very much struggling through mourning over the loss of my very close friend recently. One of the side effects seems to be that I don't really want to socialize. Talking to people, especially online, is so much effort these days. Sadly, this extended to blogging too. There's a lot I have to deal with, which God is helping me through. It's just taking a lot longer than I'd expected, and seems to have hit me harder than I realized. After 3 other deaths the last 2 years, you'd think I could get past this easier.

Anyway, I don't know when I'll be around as much again. Just sort of going with the flow on this one. He really meant the world to me, and it's still near impossible to imagine him not being in my life anymore.

Hope you all are blessed, nonetheless. I might still be around from time to time, and I will more than likely read comments or messages received -- just might take awhile before I reply.

Thanks for understanding.

Blessings and Love,
Sarah