If you ever want to really know if Spirit and angels care about you and are active in your life, try a little prayer. First, let me tell you a little story about how I met my shopping, “deal finding” angel. Yesterday, I was heading out a few towns over in search of a receipt book for a Juvenile Diabetes charity event we are doing this weekend, our very first vendor event for BearHeart CraftWorks! This week we’ve been setting up to sell woodworking items and running a children’s craft, making paddle and sailboats. We’re letting the kids sail or race their creations in a little pool at our table. Besides the receipt book, I had a laundry list of random items I was on the lookout for—some for this event and some for my 9 ½ year old daughter’s new business called BearHeart Bakery.
On the way to the store I was driving and thought of something I read a long time ago about a woman who would ask for a “deal finding” angel to come along shopping with her and how she’d pass an item in a store not really knowing why she didn’t end up buying it at the time and then understand why only later when she’d unexpectedly find that item for a much better deal somewhere else! Her take was that her “deal finding angel” was looking out for her and arranging things to save her money! I thought it was a cute story when I read it years ago, but I never really considered using that method myself—I’m not really one to go “shopping” for the fun of it.
I also remembered the rule I’ve often heard about how angels are always around us, wanting to help us in any way, but because of free will, we do have to ask them for help. I felt moved to pray and for the first time ever, knowing there are all kinds of angels with different talents just like there are people in the world, I asked if there was a shopping loving angel who wanted to come along and would help me to find deals. A few minutes later I felt pulled to stop at a store that was not on my list and had not been in my plan when I’d headed out that morning! I had the bright idea (or so I thought it was MY bright idea) to stop in and look for Valentine’s clearance because my daughter’s new business branding has a bear with a heart, hearts and red, white and black as her colors. I had in the back of my mind that I wanted very inexpensive table decorations and props for taking pictures of her baked goods and jarred cookie mixes. Oh my! I went inside and found 90% off Valentines and found a ton of items between $.10 and $.50 that were perfect!
Next, I drove to buy the receipt book and as I walked to that aisle I noticed that the clearance aisle had been recently moved to the center of the store when usually it is in the far reaches of the opposite end. I felt prompted to detour from receipt book finding and took a walk down that aisle and found the exact tan tights my daughter needed for her dance recital, in her size, for $1 and next to those I saw cedar smoking planks, $2.50 for a 2-pack. Finished cedar planks just happen to be exactly what I use for my woodburning art and I was down to saving the last two I had for “something special” which had meant I pretty much had stopped making anything at all. These were 4 times as big as the ones I’d had and when I saw them my creativity instantly woke up!
Then, I stopped at the $1 store and found perfect bags for my husband’s small art pieces and great little posters perfect for decorating my kid’s art booth. I even found 3 wooden sailboat kids perfect to have a few extra and a little more variety!
It was exactly as if I had my own personal shopper and “deal finder” organizing everything—and answering my spoken needs, the random items I had rattling around in the back of my mind and even my unspoken, not even articulated yet in my own conscious mind, heart needs. It’s always nice to see the hand of Spirit active, caring and paying attention to our every little need, no matter how simple, just on the power of our asking for help. And, now I know there really are angels who love to shop!
