Hugs From God. . .



These thoughts keep coming into my mind. . . I'm convinced that we receive hugs from God, little small seemingly insignificant daily happenings, maybe unimportant and unnoticed and given no significance by anyone else, but meaningful to us, which give us encouragement and hope. . . and faith/confidence that He is standing nearby us.


Birds are important and significant to me. Uncountable times I've had beautiful murmurations (huge collections of starlings moving as one entity) cross the road ahead of me, leaving me in awe. Hawks, and owls pass over the road right in front of me. Sandhill cranes, flocks of geese I give thanks, and watch in wonder as they pass nearby.

I take all of these as hugs from God. They are significant to me. You can say they are mere coincidence or nothing special, but I thank and praise God for them.

The nurses in the cardiac ICU at the Cleveland Clinic work 12 hour shifts. The two days, four shifts, following my heart surgery my nurses names were Austin, and Hannah. These are the names of my beloved Pastor and his wife.

Looking online, according to the Social Security administration, Austin is the 113th most popular boy's name. Hannah is the 56th most popular girls name. Just taking those two raw numbers and multiplying them together we arrive at 6328 being the number of combinations of names for those two rankings and above, but that doesn't tell the true picture, for there are surely more than 56 girls names, and far more than 113 boys names.

Here is a link to a web site listing the top 1000 boys names from Social Security:

https://www.whattoexpect.com/baby-names/list/top-baby-names-for-boys/

And here is a link to a similar list of the top 1000 girls names:

https://www.whattoexpect.com/baby-names/list/top-baby-names-for-girls/

1000 x 1000 = 1,000,000

I'm no statistician, so I don't know how to correctly calculate the odds of my having a Hannah, and Austin as my nurses for two days in the cardiac ICU. . . probably somewhere between 1 in 6,328 and 1 in 1,000,000, but it happened to me. It was meaningful to me. I felt it was a significant encouragement. I know that my pastor and his wife were both praying for me. I was covered spiritually by their prayers, and physically my medical needs with nurses of the same names. . . a hug from God.

I spent too much of my life. . . the first 45 years attributing the amazing things which were happening in my life, to blind luck, or random chance, until one day, I was given a vision where I saw about a dozen times in my life when I should have been killed, horribly injured, in huge trouble, and EVERY SINGLE TIME something 'lucky' happened. . . Only it was not luck, it was the hand of God upon me, even while my back was turned to Him. . . Even when I was denying Him, His hand was covering me. . .

I thank God for Hannah and Austin, my nurses after surgery. I thank God for Hannah and Austin, my pastor and his wife. . . This was hugely meaningful to me. I thank God for it.

Hebrews 11:6 (NKJV) But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.

Look for blessings from God in your life. The more you look, the more you will find. . .

I once was blind, but now I see. . .

I love You my God. . .
Thank You for loving me. . .

<3

Dave

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