After a wonderful afternoon strolling Main Street St. Charles with hubby, Russell, and our two canine children, we made the trek home in our SUV on I-70. Russell cast his eyes to the sky and a perfect white dove flew overhead. The dove, immediately in our line of sight, crossed paths at the specific moment we were traveling down the highway.
Coincidence. Maybe? Or Maybe not.
This stirred up memories of a service at O’Fallon Christian Church many years ago. I’d been searching for a church for several months – one my husband and I could attend together. The service was uplifting with joyful music. Listening to the song, “I Surrender”, the Holy Spirit filled me with an unexplained emotion and vulnerability. I was baptized shortly after.
Over the last few days, a series of events happened – my husband lost his aunt due to a heart attack, it was suggested I get a biopsy for a recently diagnosed medical condition, and the stress of working on my book caught up with me.
After seeing the dove, I felt calmness throughout my body, and peace. God was telling everything was going to be just fine.
Wikianswers gives this explanation:
“A white dove in your path is not by coincidence. Your awareness of its presence, calmness and beauty is also a gift. You were meant to see this dove to remind you to focus on the peace you have in your heart and that is always present all around you, and in your life.”
Wikipedia says, “In Christian Iconography, a dove also symbolizes the Holy Spirit, in reference to Matthew 3:16 and Luke 3:22 where the Holy Spirit is compared to a dove at the Baptism of Jesus. The early Christians in Rome incorporated into their funerary art the image of a dove carrying an olive branch, often accompanied by the word “Peace”. It seems that they derived this image from the simile in the Gospels, combining it with the symbol of the olive branch, which had been used to represent peace by the Greeks and Romans. The dove and olive branch also appeared in Christian images of Noah’s ark…”
So no matter what the explanation, my thoughts turned to God at the sight of the dove, and that’s what’s important.
Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and all your soul. Proverbs 3:5
