originally written 11/04/09

Did anyone else sob their was through P.S. I Love You? I admit that I freely cry at movies, but that movie brought me to a place of tears I have rarely expierenced from a film. A young woman is left a widow just before her 30th birthday. A few weeks later, letters began showing up from her deceased husband to help her grieve and move on. Oh, and to say, “P.S. I love you.”

I just read a true story about a little girl name Elena who was diagnosed with brain cancer at the age of 6. She was given about 135 days to live, but ended up living almost twice that. Before she passed, this little girl wrote hundreds of love notes and hid them around her house for her parents to find after her death. Her parents say it’s like many little hugs.

When I read this story, I was beyond touched. Little kids don’t always understand what death means. Elena not only understood, but planned and prepared for her loved ones after she died! She wanted them to know how much she loved them in hundreds of unexpected ways. Her parents still continue to find notes. Just when they think every note has been found, they find a new cache. More hugs and more love.

There is something so touching about both of these examples for me. Even as I wrote the synopses, tears flooded my eyes. When I first heard Elena’s story a few weeks back, I saw a parallel in my relationship to God. I thought of Jesus’ promise to never to forsake us as orphans (John 14:18-19). Though Jesus is no longer walking the earth, the Holy Spirit still reminds us in many personal ways that God loves us and we are his precious children.

As I was praying yesterday, I simply asked God to be present in my life that day. Imediately, a string of moments that brought a smile to my face flashed before my eyes: my wedding day, a scene on The Office, a song that makes me dance every time. When I first learned about prayer, I was taught that you’re supposed to remain incredibly focused and not let your mind wander at all because it is the devil trying to keep you from hearing God. In that thinking, my string of thoughts that made me smile out of the blue were not of God.

But every single moment that I thought of was exactly what God wanted me to hear that morning. It was as if he wanted me to know that he was with me, watching me, smiling with me as my life unfolded. When I asked God to be present, he showed me that he always has been. Those moments of joy were his love letters to me.

And I will never stop finding them!