What's with all the ladybugs? Everything Nana has ladybugs, but why? Many years ago, I heard a women's speaker say that she had chosen redbirds to remind herself that God loved her. Every time she saw a redbird, she immediately thought about how much God loved her.
I tend to be a bit too practical sometimes, so I chose parking spaces. I know it's not very theologically sound, but every time I got a parking space close to the door, I thought, "Wow! God loves me!" My kids were amazed at how many times it happened. I would pull into the store parking lot just as the car in the front space would pull away and my kids would marvel.
As our church plant grew, some of the ladies would ask me what I collected because they wanted to buy little things for me. I didn't covet the gifts, but I remembered what a blessing it was to me to buy things for my pastor's wife or youth pastor's wife when I was young. I didn't want to deny my ladies that blessing because of some feigned humility on my part. But I had a dilemma … Parking spaces reminded me that God loved me and you just cant find many cute parking space trinkets. So I chose ladybugs.
I had no idea how God would use the simple little ladybug to nudge my heart when I was struggling. Time and time again, in a dark time, a little lady bug shows up. I was walking on a beach in Oregon after a heartbreak, and there in the sand,100 yards from any plants along the shore was a ladybug. At 2 am, while I lay in a hospital bed not sure if I would ever be the same again, I noticed a ladybug beside me on the bed. Some weeks later, in the dead of winter, after I was home, my whole family had left for church and I was feeling particularly sorry for my bedridden self. I looked up at the light and there she was.
