Notice, have you not, that God draws in the subtleties of lights and shadows. He is always just off to the side of your peripheral vision. That’s intentional. If He were right there in front of you with a bullhorn it would compromise the test of life, which is the test of faith.

But He nudges, doesn’t He?

Sometimes, He seems to come right out of the darkness of a photo — a surprise, as to a woman named Ginger Erfurt, who says, “One morning as I was taking photos for a picture book of our parish and I took several quick ones of the Cross. It was 6:41 a.m. When I uploaded the pictures I was very surprised to see what now looked like a Corpus on the plain and smooth Cross.  The next day I went back at the same time but the pictures never had the same effect. The wood for the cross was made from boards that were used in the original pews of Our Lady’s Chapel from 1813.” Drenched in holiness.

Of course, scientists would never accept any such vagary. God cannot fit in a test tube (nor a telescope, for that matter).

Yet we seem to gather glimpses!

As when there is coincidence, as when a prayer is answered, as when something is said to us at just the right time or words leap out of Scripture. 

They also leap out of light — especially from light. Did anything jump out of the light blazing through this window?

“Coincidence or not, the way the light was reflected is exactly in line with the rays depicted as coming from Jesus’ Divine Heart,” says Fran DeGasta of Norwich, Vermont — who took the photo to the right in the kitchen of a woman who had a well-known near-death experience and lives in Lake Charles, Louisiana. We receive such photographs on a weekly and often daily basis. Below to the right: a small but steady stream of visitors pray with the “miraculous” image of the “Virgin Mary” that has appeared in a window in Jessup, Georgia (is Jesus in it?).

There is nature too. How many images seem to form in various ways! The supernatural is all around us all the time and sometimes in nuance inflects itself visibly.

Of course, that interaction is rejected by those who are worldly, which means to define matters (even religious ones) in line with the movement in the societies of men instead of by way of Scripture and deeper spiritual instincts. The “world” knows its own and rejects others!

Thus, if there are antagonisms in your life that hurt you, and seem unexplained — if you are struggling with why someone now rejects you — see if that rejection has paralleled your advancement toward Jesus.

And let it cause you no worry. Just look for God in everything around you, and be surprised at how often He is just around the corner of your perception.

[Resources: Online Michael Brown Retreat announced for February]