Daily Inspiration

Anyone who knows me, knows that I love quotes.  I surround myself with them, I put them at the bottom of my emails in a signature, I carry a book of quotes that I've collected, I have pages of them printed at home, and book after book of various kinds of quotes for every occassion! 

My daily inspiration has been a quote that came through one of my (many) email subscriptions for a quote-of-the-day:

"I believe in the sun even when it's not shining. 

I believe in Love even when I am alone. 

I believe in God even when He is silent." ~WWII refugee

Now, while my times are not NEARLY as hard as the survivers of WWII, or the thousands of people affected by what's been happening in nature and politics around the world these last few weeks, my life- like many others- has suffered droughts of love, droughts of faith, and definately times that have felt like never ending night. 

I don't believe that God is ever, truly, silent.  He may be listening, He may be observing, but I don't believe He leaves us with an absense of presence.  I believe that, most often, we don't hear God because we are way too preoccupied.  Sometimes rightfully so, but none-the-less, preoccupied.  Take, for example, the concept of an unanswered prayer.  Often times we will look back and say "Thank God for unanswered prayers."  A blessing in disguise, right? 

Now- please don't get me wrong- I am NOT saying that the horrors that have happened through out history are unanswered prayers, or prayers, or lack-of-God... that's a whole other topic of Good vs. Evil that I'm not getting into right now. 

I'm saying that- as a single person living in the Pacific Northwest who has been feeling her faith falter off and on for the last few years, even when I don't feel the sun through the rain, even though I don't have someone to come home to, even though I don't always go to church--- the sun comes up, I see and feel love all around me, and I know that God is near.