When God speaks, you listen.

You can try to sugar coat it, analyze it and even dispute it, but it’s as simple as that. He speaks, you listen.

Unlike the way we listen with our ears to one another, you have to listen to God, listen FOR God, with more than just yours ears.

You listen with your eyes, with your nose, your mind, your heart and your soul. You listen with every ounce of your being. And you listen even when you don’t realize you are listening, because that’s how powerful God’s voice is.

It reaches you even when you’re not listening for it.

In no other way has God spoken to me more strongly than through nature. It is in the beauty of a flowing river or a singing bird that I see God’s presence more than anywhere else. So, it would make perfect sense that when I recently began to immerse myself in my faith again, God would choose one of his creatures to show Himself to me.

All summer long I have been visited again and again by a monarch butterfly. I see this little critter in the most unlikely of places.

Sometimes, she visits me when I am sitting outdoors, enjoying nature, and saying a prayer, but other times, it is when I am driving, in the middle of a concrete jungle, and feeling a moment of road rage. Her presence immediately slows my heart rate, makes me smile and take a step back.

I said in my previous post I’m a bit of a misfit and do things my own way. It should come as no surprise then that I decided earlier this summer I wanted a tattoo; at the age of 33, I was finally ready.

The concept of the tattoo actually popped into my head in church one afternoon. A quick glimpse in my mind, and I knew immediately it was right. The day I went to get my tattoo, I walked out of the tattoo parlor to be greeted by my monarch. It fluttered in front of me, did a loop, and flew away.

When God speaks, you listen. When a butterfly flutters by, I smile, I say thank you, and I listen.

How does God speak to you?

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When she’s not getting butterflies permanently etched on her back, Karina can be found being Candid and sometimes Creative at her other blogs. Once in a while she’s also serving up coffee and pop culture fare at Cafe Karina.

Photo Credits: My own