Does God Still Speak?

She said what?

I was mindlessly scrolling along social media when a comment I saw brought it all to a screeching halt. I sat here staring at the post and the comment that was made.I wondered, without asking, what made her think as she did. The original post was from someone who is planning on a presentation of people who have had God speak to them. The commenter said that God only speaks through His Word. I beg to differ. 

In the year 2007 I went for my very first mammogram. It was November, I had turned fifty the previous August. I went to the appointment, went through the test and as I was preparing to return to get dressed the technician informed me that since this was my first mammogram that I may be called back due to them having nothing to compare the results. When the call came that I did indeed have to go back I took it all in stride. After all, they had told me it might happen. As they were doing the test, they would take a set of images, have me sit and wait, then return to do more. After the third set they told me I could get dressed and wait in the waiting area as they needed to do an ultrasound. Oh. I was told not to worry, it was routine. But the actions of the person walking with me back to the waiting area said otherwise. I was called back, they did the ultrasound and I was sent on my way. My mother was with me. We had planned on going shopping as it was one of the high shopping days, but instead we just went home.

 Within days I was sitting in an examining room of a surgeon’s office. She had seen the ultrasound from the test center but wanted to do her own. Immediately she saw what they did. She wanted to do a needle biopsy. After she finished, I returned to the job I had left to go see this doctor. I walked back into the manufacturing plant, let my department manager know I was back and headed toward the far side of the department to try to get my job caught up. As I went to pack the yarn that had come off the machine, I leaned against the box I was preparing to pack into. I kept muttering, “I don’t want to do this.” because I knew. I didn’t need to wait on the official test results, I knew. As I kept muttering the not wanting to phrase, as clear as any conversation I heard, “How dare you?! How dare you not want to do this for me, after all I have done for you?!”

Have you ever been chastised by the Holy Spirit? It will most definitely get your attention. It also let me know, that while I was going through what was ahead, I was not going through it alone. 

Once I had healed from the lumpectomy I began radiation treatments. Five days a week for six weeks. Radiation sucked every last bit of energy that was within my body out. I felt more zombie than living being. From beginning to end, I only missed three full days of work. One for the surgical biopsy and two for the lumpectomy. For my radiation treatments I would go in fifteen minutes early and leave fifteen minutes early. With each treatment, I felt more exhausted. Every step became a challenge, except for my walks. Weather permitting, every single day I would come home and take a long walk behind the house. I always took the same path, but I always walked. Every day there was something different waiting. It could be a new flower, an insect, birds, feathers. deer, racoon. Something waited every day, a gift and reminder that I was not going through this battle alone. I wrote about the fight. From mammogram to last treatment, I wrote and shared my story. It brought out questions for others to ask. It allowed others to see what they might face. It gave peace and comfort that it wasn’t a battle they need face or would face alone.

Before my now late husband went into trucking he had worked for a local bakery that closed. He was trying everything he knew to find another job. It was nearly impossible as he didn’t have a high school diploma. Our son was given a job by someone we knew, but he needed steel toed boots. My husband said to go into the filing cabinet and get a credit card we had but had not used. I went to get the card, opening the drawer there was a bank envelope laying on top of the papers inside. Looking in the envelope I nearly cried. Carrying it to where my husband sat, I handed it to him with one word, “look.” Inside was enough money not only for the boots our son needed, but socks and groceries as well.
 I could say that it was money that had been left over from a vacation and that I had put it in the drawer, which may be true. Thing is, I opened that drawer on a near daily basis and had not seen the envelope. Not until it was needed.

At the time of my cancer battle, my husband was again out of work. He had a disagreement with the company he was driving for and that left him not only out of work but black listed because no company he talked to wanted anything to do with him after they checked that former employers thing. Every day, I would sit her for long stretches of time searching for places to put in his application online as he was not computer savvy. He would then take any calls that came in. Several weeks in and he was becoming despondent. All the while though, we were being given financial gifts to keep us from going under. Those gifts kept bills paid and food on the table. Just as he was at his lowest, a call came in that changed everything. A company was willing to take a chance. It was one that I had no recollection of seeing anywhere I had applied. Within a couple of days, he was back at work.

Does God still speak? He does. I have more examples, but this is getting long. He may speak as in my cancer struggles, or He may speak through signs and wonders. Either way He chooses to do it, He most definitely does still speak to those who will listen. Maybe, the lady who said that He only speaks through His Word, needs to sit quietly for a while and listen.