"It's a sign"

Those words came out of my dad's mouth AT LEAST three times day, every day of my entire life. Subsequently, as I grew older and my relationship with my parents soured, I CRINGED when I heard that and forcefully believed that there was NO SUCH THING AS SIGNS. That there was no connection between something that happens now and something that is supposed to happen in the future. Then we started having difficulties with building our family and after I started suffering losses, my belief in "signs" vascillated depending on which stage of grief I was in. Back then, "signs" to me was wrapped up in a package that involved many other things stemming from my Catholic upbringing. And those things contradicted one another. For instance, "it's a sign that it was meant to be" or "God is in control" completely contradicts "we have free will" and another they taught "if we choose to do bad things, bad things will happen to us and if we choose to do good things then good things will happen to us."

At that point, I had just about given up on Catholicism (please don't give opinions on religion this is just for back story) and I had never experienced these "signs" at that point so I was able to let that whole line of thought go for the moment.

And then I experienced a "sign". A clear and obvious one. Not one that you say "haha, maybe it's a sign!" No this was a ..... a KNOWING. And I was caught off guard because I was getting comfortable in my life thinking that nothing had any rhyme or reason. It took an insane pressure off of me frankly. So this hit me like a ton of bricks. But then a few more occurred, not many, but they occurred during difficult times when we were trying to build our family. Obvious signs and knowings. I didn't know what to do with it. I've been thinking about this for years.

So is it possible to believe in a kind and loving God, that does not intervene, who does not believe in the "deserving way of life", who knows how our life will turn out and offers us some "knowings" or "signs" to get us through? When and how did he put these things in place... I just don't know. I can't even imagine that I could ever know such things in this life. I've even accepted that my life map was written out for me and I was to follow this exact path in order to learn the lessons I need to learn in this life. I'm able to stomach all of that, signs included, as long as I keep in mind that I did nothing to deserve what has happened in my life. That I try my best and work with the life and experiences that have befallen me. Yes, I'll take that.

I always think about this topic around this time of year because C was born March 24th, our youngest. Ian was born/died on April 14th, our oldest. And N was born May 8th, he is our second oldest. They each have consecutive birthday months. Obviously unplanned. Now that I look back on that (and I did think about this on C's birthday) that is a sign to me that everything worked out as it should have. This is something very important to the boys. The signs that I speak of that happened during the tumultous years were even more shocking.

There are also things that I often think about and wonder if they are signs as well, but I don't know if I will ever put them in that category. N's conception occurred on Ian's due date. We were in such a bad place that we didn't even recognize the date when it came, only after the fact did we realize that we conceived him on Ian's due date. A sign? Not sure. I was born on my maternal grandmother's birthday. Ian, was born and died on my paternal grandmother's birthday. A sign? If they are, I don't know what that means.

Sorry for the random topic, it just popped in my head today and I thought I would blog about it :-)