~God Sends Me Ladybugs~

For as long as I can remember, I have been one of those souls that is always questioning things and yearning to learn more. I am one of those people that has a constant hunger to read and learn, learn, learn.  

I have always wondered about, and been highly interested in topics such as religion, spirituality, ghosts, and anything paranormal. I have also always had a very strong interest in learning about God. I remember even as a child talking to my parents and wanting to know more about heaven, angels and God.

For as long as I can remember I've always had this odd "knowing" of feeling connected to a higher "something". No one in my family ever preached about or discussed God or religion, yet I have always had a strong yearning for wanting to know about God.  

I remember one of the very first books I learned to read from was a book I received for Christmas one year from a family member. It was a children's story book with stories from the bible. It was my favorite book. My dad would read to me every night and I remember I always wanted him to read a story from that book to me. Then, as I began to learn to read, I would read every night to my dad, and it was from that book that I would always want to read from. 

As I grew, this interest and fascination continued. I read the entire bible the very first time when I was all of 12 or 13.  I read stories about the teachings of Jesus Christ. I read whatever I could get my hands on about any and all religions. In high school I attended an all-girls Catholic school and one of my favorite classes, which I found very interesting was religion.

I read about, learned about, and studied every single religion. During my learning, I found it strange how all of the world's religions are so very similar, yet rather than celebrate our similarities, people choose to fight and war over each others differences. People tend to ignore the preaching in their religion to be peaceful and to love and accept one another. It saddens and angers me how people will use their religious beliefs and books to ridicule and condemn others, even though their teachings teach against such behaviour. It angers me that people feel the need to proclaim that their beliefs are the true beliefs and that every other belief is wrong. Why can't we just all agree to disagree?  

I remember growing up, having long discussions with my dad and mom, as well as my brother and grandma and grandpa about their beliefs in God and religion.

Along my path in this life, I could never really find any belief system that truly fit with what I felt in my heart. I was discouraged by all of the rules and dogma of the many churches and their belief systems. Because of my Irish/Catholic heritage, I delved very deeply into studying the Catholic religion. I found the masses and services very comforting and of course all of the teachings about Jesus at the various masses was always very interesting to me. Many times it felt as though the word of God being preached during the mass was speaking to me directly. I took great comfort in that. Yet, all of the rules and stipulations of the church turned me somewhat away from the church.  

Despite all of that, being a baptized Catholic myself, I had my children baptized Catholic as well. Yet, deep down I believed and still believe that they will find their own way to God. Their path in their lifetime is theirs. They will develop their own personal relationship with our Creator and it may not include the Catholic faith whatsoever.  

Many years ago, I eventually came to a point in my life where I was questioning many belief systems and was feeling rather lost. I was trying to find my way through my own beliefs, and I was questioning and discovering for the first time in my life, my beliefs and what I held true to my heart. I was longing for a closer relationship with God, yet felt so distanced, much too disconnected. I was finally finding a path that I felt was leading me closer to some long forgotten truths and would lead me on a path to walking much closer with God. 

It was during this time that I was in the shower one day, and I simply began talking out loud to God, or "praying" I guess you could call it. One of the things I asked for was a sign that this was indeed the right path, what I was meant to do in this lifetime. A path that God accepted. I then asked for God to send me an obvious sign. I asked him to send a ladybug. I don't know why I chose a ladybug, I just did.

It was quite steamy in the shower, so I opened up the window to allow some of the steam to leave. I then closed my eyes and stepped under the water to wet and wash my hair. As I finished rinsing the shampoo out of my hair, I noticed something out of the corner of my eye. There, walking on the screen of the window was a ladybug. I couldn't believe it. I actually started to cry. I then smiled and said, "Thank you."

Ever since that day whenever I have needed a sign that things are going to be okay or that I am doing the right thing, I ask God for a sign, and a ladybug will show up out of nowhere. It always lands right where it's obvious. A ladybug will land on my windshield right in front of me while I'm driving. Or one will land on the front of my shirt or on one of my arms. It never fails, I ask for a sign and a ladybug appears.

A few years ago I did some research on the spiritual meaning of ladybugs and found pretty much the same information from what I came across, and have compiled it here;

"Should this little insect show up for you as a temporary messenger or lesson totem, she is alerting you to the fact that your life is about to change for the better. She is reminding you to count your current blessings, as in thereby doing, you create the positive link to the supportive Universe which will always wrap itself around our expectations in an effort to manifest what we focus our will and intent upon."

"God's voice is usually nothing more than a whisper, and you have to listen very carefully to hear it.  But other times, in those rarest of moments, the answer is obvious and rings loud as a church bell."

~Nicholas Sparks, The Last Song~

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