Do you ever have a hard time getting God’s messages?

I want to share with you what I put in my journal today: March 26, 2010 Something significant happened today. Something I can’t ignore. I think I mentioned yesterday that after I’d prayed and told God thank you for my health and ability to go out and walk and after I thanked him for a beautiful day, a song came on the radio by Carrie Underwood called “Starts with Goodbye”. It was such a perfect song for what I’m going through and it was as though God immediately answered my prayer with a message through that song. He was saying to me, this is right, you’re doing the right thing. There will be a blue horizon. This will be painful, you will cry, you will hurt but there will be a blue horizon. I thanked him again and promised him that I would keep listening. I asked that if he could just keep sending me messages, I would really be trying to listen. And though I know I shouldn’t, I asked him to please not send me any mixed messages at least for a while. So what was so significant today? I had a hard day. I stayed home from work so that I could pack some more things when my husband and his son weren’t here. Unfortunately, I’d been so caught up in what I was feeling, and because my husband and I aren’t talking, I had no idea his son would be home from school and, therefore, I wouldn’t have the day alone. Which, I guess was fine. I was able to pack a few boxes from the kitchen. I planned to leave later to go to a movie so I’d be out of the house for a few hours. It’s very difficult to stay here. I spend most of my time in the spare bedroom and try not to be around the two of them. There’s something that happens when you know that your husband won’t give up porn even if it means he’ll lose you. There’s something that happens when he chooses it over you time after time. It makes you feel ugly, unappreciated, and unwanted. To know that he can replace you with that and knowing that he’s taking care of himself devalues you. I’ve been looking in the mirror lately and seeing how much my age has caught up to me. Or, maybe it’s just the stress of this situation. It didn’t matter a lot to me how I looked when I went to the movie, I just needed to get away. But, I made myself freshen up my makeup at least before I left the house. I left in sweatpants and a sweatshirt . I didn’t really care how I looked. I wasn’t going anywhere to impress anyone. I was going to a movie to escape this house and I don’t care what anyone thinks. I went to Wendy’s to have a bowl of chili before the movie. I walked up to the counter and noticed an older man, probably my age, with two kids. The boy was playing a game on his phone and the girl was standing quietly next to her father. She glanced up at me briefly and I saw her face. She had black hair and beautiful dark eyes with long curly eyelashes. She had the kind of eyes I always wished I had. She followed her brother and father up to the counter but was quiet throughout the ordering process. I’d estimated the boy was about 11 and the girl was about 14. I looked at the man and thought, hmm, someday I guess I’ll be looking again but not today. They got their order and walked away. I ordered, got my food and sat down at a table as far away from people as I could find. I just wanted to eat quietly and kill some time. I’d left too early and I had an hour to kill. So, after I’d finished, I pulled out my phone and started playing a Facebook game myself. I hadn’t given the man or his children another thought. Someone walked up behind me and tapped me on the shoulder. It was the young girl. She had came from the other side of the restaurant to talk to me. She said, “Excuse me, I just wanted to come and tell you that you’re beautiful. You have beautiful eyes, you’re beautiful and I wanted you to know that just in case you didn’t.” Bewildered and caught off guard, I looked at her and took her hand. I said “Thank you, you’re very beautiful too. Thank you.” I sat there unable to contain the tears. Quietly, carefully, I tried to wipe the tears from my face so that she wouldn’t see what she had done made me cry. I didn’t want her to feel bad because they weren’t sad tears. She had done something beautiful. A song my daughter sang once came to mind called “Angels Among Us” by Alabama. All I could think of was, that was an angel sent to me to tell me that I needed to know I was beautiful. Here I was on a day I felt ugly, fat, and unwanted. And, there she was, one of the most unlikely people you might think would step up and say something that personal, a shy young girl stepping up to deliver God’s message - “You are beautiful just in case you didn’t know”. A few minutes later, when I got to the safety of my car, I cried again. I hear you God, I’m listening. Thank you for being there for me. I guess it’s not taking a baseball bat any more to get me to recognize you’re talking to me. Keep talking, I’ll keep listening.