God loves me with quarters

Sometimes, when we're too lost in our own pain or numbness, we can become a little blind to God's attentive love for us. Sometimes, when this happens, and He knows that we especially need to be reminded of just how loved we are, He does something a little out of the ordinary to get our attention. He did this for me this week, with a handful of quarters.

Remember those state quarters, one for each of the United States? I loved those. I diligently hunted for them, putting together a set for each member of our family. I got the special pasteboard folders for them, and felt such satisfaction when every divot was filled with its proper coin.

And then came the U.S. territories series, and the parks and monuments series. I truly enjoy both the search and the quarters themselves. Many of them have beautiful artwork.

I didn't start collecting the parks and monuments quarters until a year or two after they started being issued, so I missed a number of those early ones. I've kept a list of what I'm missing, and over the years I've found many of them. There were a few, though, that I had never seen. Yosemite, El Yunque and Acadia were the final three that I had never found.

Since we started living in our travel trailer last December, we now frequent laundromats and the laundry rooms of RV parks, which necessitates a stead flow of quarters. I often take a few minutes to sift through each new roll of quarters, hunting for buried treasure. I have found a few to fill gaps, but still, those few early ones eluded me.

In the process of all the shuffling in our moving process, some state quarters had fallen out of our folder, and Michael's as well. I was so frustrated to see that. Too late, I thought to put each one in a large plastic zipper bag. I did that, sighed, and started searching for replacements for the missing coins. I'd been able to find all but two, by the time July rolled around.

In addition to the frustration factor, there is also the emotional element of having lost anything remotely related to Michael. That nerve is raw.

This week, we passed the thirteen-month mark since we learned of our Michael's death. He took his life on June 24th, and was found by a friend the next day, which is when we got the news. Every month, those two days are just hard for me. My heart hurts, and every one of my nerves is on edge. This loss of our beloved child is like no other pain I have ever experienced. The days that mark the count of how long I've lived without him carry an especially heavy weight.

One of the ways I survive those hard days is to intentionally carry on with basic tasks of daily life. This week, that meant laundry. I could have done my laundry on another day, but I decided to do it on the 24th. I thought it would help me to get through the day in a healthy way. The laundry room is a few dozen yards away, so doing laundry gets me out the door, walking back and forth in the sunshine and fresh air. It's good for me, and does good things for my heart.

I had schlepped the first bag over and started the first load, scanning the quarters as I dropped them into the slots. There was nothing I needed, so I started the machine and walked back to our trailer. I thought that, rather than checking each quarter as I used it, I should probably make the effort to check all of them at once.

I sat down at the dinette and emptied the baggie of quarters onto the table. I pulled out the wrinkled little paper with my list of long-sought treasure, and began the search. On the second handful, I smiled. There was the last state quarter I needed to refill our folder. A few coins later, I smiled again. There was the last one I needed, to fix Michael's folder. I whispered, "Aww, thank you," and continued my search. That comforted a small sore place in my heart, being able to replace what was lost.

I dropped each handful back into the baggie as I finished checking it. In all, we had about one or two rolls worth of quarters on hand. On the third or fourth handful, I turned a quarter and my eyes grew wide. There was Yosemite, from 2010! I smiled so big! "Oh, thank you!"  I set it aside with the others, turned over a couple more coins, and froze. There was El Yunque, from 2011.

I sat and stared at that quarter with misty eyes and said, "Are you kidding me?!" Goosebumps prickled my arms as I added it to the pile of "finds." I turned over a few more quarters and there it was: Acadia, from 2011, the last of the long-sought quarters. I looked at that silver coin, buried my face in my hands, and cried.

It might seem silly, but I had been searching for these specific quarters for seven or eight years. Every pocketful of change, every time I emptied my coin purse, I checked every quarter, looking for these missing few. All those years...nothing.

Until this day, when my heart was sad and sore, and my loving Father reached down from Heaven to send a precious message to me. It wasn't really about the quarters. It was about my heart. Finding every single one of the coins I'd longed to find in one small pile, all together, sent me a very clear message.

It said, "I see you. I see your heart. I know you. I am with you. You are so loved."

The odds of those specific, hard-to-find coins all showing up in one single batch are beyond any measure of coincidence.

But God.

He wanted to speak love to my hurting heart, and He did it in a way that I could not miss. He did what He has promised to do, and what we have seen Him do over and over this past year: to love me, to hold me close, to be tenderly with me in the broken middle of my pain.

He is here, holding me close. He sees my aching heart and catches every tear.

I see His hand in the beauty around me, and when I revel in an exquisite sunset I often think, "He paints the sky with glory." But that is not something He does for me alone. I am blessed and uplifted by the majestic, fiery beauty of it, but it's not just for me.

This, though, was about as personal and pointed as it could be.

My God, my Abba (Papa, Daddy), my Heavenly Father, reached into my world and showed me His presence and His love with an unmistakable flourish.

Some might think of this as a sign from Michael, but I've never known what to think about that idea. It never sat comfortably with me. I read an article a while back, where the author talked about these things not as signs from the departed loved one, but as signs of love from the One who loves us most. That felt right to me. That spoke peace to my soul.

So, this week, when my heart was a small sad thing, hurting and tired, Jesus reached out and sent me a love note, spelled out with common coins.