The Awakening

It is possible to experience an awakening in this life through realizing just how precious each moment, each mental process, and each breath truly is.

— Christy Turlington

God woke me just after midnight. It was June 15, 2016, shortly after the birth of my granddaughter Danica Kay, who was born with my mother's blue eyes. She was the only child of four to have blue eyes. Her father, my son Derik, and his wife, Barbara, both have brown eyes. I and Derik's father both have brown eyes. All three of Derik's other children — Jaci-Layne, Gabriel, and Ezekiel — have brown eyes. But Danica Kay was blessed with the blue eyes of her great grandmother, which I know to be the beginning of her story. It was five weeks after the passing of my mother, four weeks and six days after the day she'd allowed me to see God in her blue eyes.

I was triaging on call that night and was awakened shortly after midnight with a call that one of our patients had died. I got up and handled the situation as I had done many times before. I went back to bed and attempted to go back to sleep, but it was not to be. I didn't know it was God at first, but as I lay there wide awake, it became clearer to me. A million thoughts were running through my head — thoughts about my mother, thoughts about a patient I had taken care of two years earlier, thoughts about a book that I had started over twenty-five years ago. These thoughts did not seem to be connected in any way and did not make much sense to me at first. But soon, it began to come together.

Sometime during my mother's final days, I had come to view her illness, ALS, as a blessing. It was much the same way that the patient who came to my mind that night had come to view his cancer. Up until that time, my mother had spent her life in search of something, not knowing that what she thought was missing was inside her all along. All she had to do to unbridle it was be still and listen. Once she was no longer able to talk, she had to be still. And once she was still, she had to listen. It was then that she began to hear God. As she began to follow His voice, she found herself in church again after many years. It was there that she finally found the peace that she had been so desperately searching for her entire life.

My mother and I had never been close due to the complicated circumstances of our lives. But once she found that peace, it allowed me to have compassion for her and to love her as I had not been able to do before. I am a hospice nurse, and I have true compassion and love for all my patients. It's a powerful love that fills me with joy every time I visit or simply think of them. Toward the end of my mother's illness, when she was not unlike one of them, I was able to transcend that love and compassion to her. I will be eternally grateful to God for graciously allowing me that in her final days.

That night, in those seconds or minutes or hours, as the whirling thoughts began to come together, I felt the excitement growing inside of me. I realized what was happening, that this was coming from somewhere beyond myself, beyond this world. This was God! As my heart raced, I began to write desperately and furiously, noting everything that came into my mind. It was page after page of mixed-up, jumbled thoughts. As the world as I knew it slowly came back into view, I knew exactly what I was to do. I was to bring out the book that I had begun almost twenty-five years earlier and finish it. It would be a tribute to my mother, and it would be about Him. That was all I really knew, when I finally crawled back between my cool sheets in the early morning hours and drifted off to sleep.

My life changed from that day forward. I had always been a believer in God. At that time in my life, I had what I had considered to be a very good relationship with Him. But following that glorious awakening, I realized that I had only had a tiny glimpse of what was out there for me. I began to see God in everything, hear Him in the slightest breeze, and think of Him constantly throughout my day. I had been on a spiritual path of sorts from the time I got sober through Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) a little over twenty years earlier, but it seemed so minute in comparison to where I was headed now.

The morning following the awakening, I was so excited that I could barely contain myself. I went online in search of the perfect place to stay for a few days and begin writing. I was directed to a bed and breakfast in San Antonio with a fabulous view of the Blanco River. I booked a room and got an e-mail the next day saying that it was not available. I started to look for another place but was compelled to call the same place back instead. I reached David, the resort owner's nephew. As we talked, I found out that his sister had recently passed away while on hospice.

David and I felt an instant connection, and he began working on a way to get me a room. He told me that the room that I had looked at was not the room that I needed. He had another room that he thought would be perfect for me — one with an awesome view of the river. He told me that the room was available for two days at the beginning of July, and I booked it right then. I couldn't wait to go there and get started on this task that God had put before me. I knew that this was going to be the perfect place for me to do some great writing.

Once I knew that I would be writing a book, I started writing little notes and thinking about all the things I needed to say. I had not yet realized that He would be telling the story. I was so excited and couldn't wait to start writing — and I didn't have to! God woke me up the very next morning at 6:30 with the first words, and He continued to do so every morning from that day forward. I must say that I was not happy about this at first. I had never been an early riser, and my job as a hospice nurse provided me the luxury of staying in bed a little later than most jobs.

In fact, prior to God's wake-up calls, I would set my alarm for 8:15 every morning. We had a conference call at 8:30, so I would hit snooze once and then hit the 5-minute alarm that I had put in place. It was perfect! I would wake up a little at a time, and at 8:29, I would be awake enough to make the call. After the call, sometimes I would get up and sometimes not, depending on the day I had ahead of me.

Needless to say, when God decided to start waking me up every morning at 6:30 or 7:00, I was a little disappointed. However, the way he woke me made it okay. At about 6:30, I would start rolling around and having all these thoughts related to the book. Then I would jump out of bed, open the blinds over my lake, and say, "Good morning, God!" It was incredible how it came so easily. I'd never dreamed I would be an early riser, and I certainly didn't think that one...