Don't ignore the hunch

“Don’t forget your keys”. Oh oops, I almost left without them when I got the hunch not to forget my keys. Have we not all been there? Getting a hunch to call someone or waking up just in time. I get hunches all the time. I have learnt that they can be vitally important. But your head needs room to hear it.

In the years when I was in total survival mode I did not hear them, or I cannot remember. I was trying to make the noises in my head so loud it would keep me awake and going. It sounds bizarre I know. I just could not afford to allow any feelings or I would crash. Thinking back I was too afraid to let God do His thing and help me. These days it is much better.

I had a lovely neighbor once who moved away to a downstairs apartment a few blocks away. We called on a regular basis and every Christmas I made a beautiful card and I would drop it into her mailbox. I knew her health had deteriorated and that she needed to move to an elderly home, I just did not know when.

That one morning I had a hunch, I had the hunch a number of times. So I called her to ask if she had taken the card from the mailbox yet. The big news was that she was moving out that day and that she was going to send me a card with her new address. She was so dear to me I would have been upset if I did not know where she ended up. So I waited a few days and then I received an official looking envelop. She had died that same afternoon when we talked on the phone! I was shocked and yet happy I called. Knowing she is in heaven I am glad I will get to see her again. I miss her still.

It was the summer of 2008, third week of July. An old lady, an acquaintance had passed away and I went to the funeral with a friend. My parents were there too. My dad’s cancer had returned aggressively and he had just started chemotherapy. He was getting bald.

My dad was a wise man, popular and very loving. So crowds would gather around him. The funeral started and afterwards all visitors had coffee and cake. I already stood outside half way to the parking lot when a hunch came. “You didn’t say goodbye to your dad”. How could I not go in and hug the man! So I did. Six days later he suddenly passed away; his heart stopped beating. I just cannot write this without getting emotional. I am so so so grateful the Holy Spirit gives me these hunches!!!! I have learnt to value them as you may well understand.

I am for sure not the only one who gets hunches. There were times I did not know how to hang on any longer and I pleaded with the Lord to help me survive. I wanted to go to heaven so bad and never look back. (I need to quickly clean my reading glasses, writing about all this makes me emotional once again and my glasses get foggy.) 😂 But I could not do that to my parents and I knew God did not want me to do that. So I continued on as best as I could.

A friend invited me to a gospel concert and I went. I cried the entire time, sobbing away. Right behind me was someone from my church, Phoebe. We were not close at the time and she had no idea about the trouble I was in. But she had a hunch! She wore a necklace with a pearl on it. After the concert she gave it to me with the message that God loves me and that I am a pearl in His eyes, I am precious! I cried even harder, if that was at all possible. 😢 Very moved by it I accepted the necklace and it changed my life!

In those days I had discovered Photoshop and loved taking pictures, creating a design and turn them into calendars, bookmarks, all kinds of things. And this necklace inspired me to make a bookmark of it which I still hand out once in a while. This is what it looks like. I put the golden cross I always wear in the picture. This gesture gave me hope to hold on.

The text is from a Dutch Christian song:

Realize the Father knows you

Know that you are precious

Do you know you are a pearl

A pearl in God’s hands

So I encourage you to pay attention to hunches. They are real and they come from the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit was given to us to among other things build us up, to encourage us and to comfort us. You can ask the Holy Spirit for help. Like I said I get hunches all the time. They have become quite normal to me. While sewing I suddenly get ideas. Sometimes these hunches come in images in my head. It is nothing less than awesome …and handy. 😁