Have you ever prayed for ‘sign?’
You know how when you think you feel a tug in your gut to do something different, but you just aren’t 100% sure?
I have. I still do.
So I pray for signs.
This was particularly true when I was trying to decide whether I should quit a secure public service job with benefits after 18 years to venture out on my own.
I was miserable in the job. MISERABLE.
I was cursed out daily, and I got death threats as a normal part of a week. I didn’t even take them seriously anymore. Whatevs…a shotgun to my head. Right. What else ya’ got?
I would punch in the code of the office door every morning when I got to work and think, “Ok, when I leave here I’ll be 8 hours and 45 minutes closer to death.”
Yep.
Background
I grew up in a fundamentalist country church, and I know all about the story of Gideon laying out his fleece. Gideon prayed for God to give him an answer so he put out a fleece. He worked it out with God that Gideon would know the answer to the question based on whether or not there was dew on the fleece the next morning.
You should know I would’ve made a terrible Gideon. I would’ve been getting up all night to try to figure out if I was specific enough to God.
Wait, did I say any dew or just a little?
What time is this test over?
What if I sleep through the dew and it dries and I make the wrong decision?
Am I really feeling dew or do I just think I’m feeling dew?
Sound familiar?
Well, you should know that after years of praying for the sign—and after years of getting the answer I was too afraid to acknowledge—the final sign finally came.
One day a grown woman walked into our office, pulled up her skirt and politely took a dump in the floor.
NO.
Process this: An actual #2.
(And I AM going to acknowledge the ability to do a #2 on command. I mean, WHO can do that? Noted.)
But I remember that day as being the day when–after having gotten my ‘answer’ for a few years in various more subtle ways–I KNEW I was, in fact, made for something more.
I was created for something greater than waiting for strangers to walk into our office and take an actual dump on the floor to show their disgust.
I tell you this story because you may be in the same situation I was.
You may be so afraid of taking a risk that you keep putting out your fleece and then doubting the answer.
You may already know what you’re supposed to do, but you’re procrastinating because it seems scary.
You may be afraid to trust yourself.
Well, take it from someone who gets it:
When you pray for a sign, take an early one.
…because if you wait too long, someone may actually crap on you. And frankly, Beautiful, there’s simply no need to let it go that far. 😉