I'll admit it: I like to write... So, to that end, I maintain a few weblogs aside from the one here. One blog hits my theater friends in Dallas... one is for the church where I work now... another is where friends congregate from my former church... another is the place where I volunteer in an outside ministry. Sometimes I copy the same post to all the blogs for the simple purpose of having something new for people to read. Sometimes I write different posts for each.

Last week I received word that there had been a comment posted on one of my blogs. (I love it when people respond to my posts. I feel like a child getting mail in the mailbox!) At my first free moment I popped over to that blog page and read the note. The writer told me how she enjoyed seeing my family, how grown up my daughter looked in her costume, and how nice it was to be back in touch after many years. In all it was a really uplifting post, but with one problem; it was signed, Sophie.

I don't know anyone named Sophie.

My next thought was that many people use a pseudonym when blogging, so Sophie had to be someone I knew. I followed the links from her comment to her blog where I saw pictures of her children, "MotorBoat, Yellow Bird and Sasha." There were even photos of her and her husband, "Leopold." As I looked at the photos, I had to wonder, "Who IS this person?!" It was driving me nuts... As I read on through many of Sophie's posts, I called my redheaded sweetheart to come over and help me unravel the mystery. She looked at the picture and said, "I don't know who that is." The guessing game went on for almost an hour when I noticed a reply to one of her posts from someone that I knew. So I emailed "Polly" and asked her to help me solve the riddle.

It turns out that Sophie was a friend in college who happened to be from my hometown. We were a couple of years apart in school, so we never met until college, and, as she was a nursing student and I a music major, our paths only crossed outside the classroom. Nonetheless, knowing who she was meant that I could finally enjoy all the things I'd learned about her and her family while searching out her identity.

Once the puzzle was solved I started looking for something I could learn from the experience. Perhaps the first and most obvious lesson is that people change in 20 years! It was intriguing to think that I have likely changed so much that people who knew me 20 years ago probably wouldn't immediately recognize me. That's not the reason I shared the story, though. The reason I write is simple. God used this experience to remind me that there are many people go through life playing guessing games when it comes to Him. They see His work and don't immediately connect it to His hand. They experience His provision and don't realize that it's a result of His caring for them.

All of that being said, be encouraged. God isn't hiding from You. He is at work all around you and wants you to know that He is near. Look to Him and ask for His guidance. And when He answers, take a moment to worship Him.

"Call to Me and I will answer you and tell you great and wondrous things you do not know." --Jeremiah 33:3, HCSB