#3 Sparkles & Lights
Over the past two years, something very interesting began to happen. It started subtly, so subtly that I dismissed it for probably six months.
It started with these tiny little sparkles. I would see white, blue, or sometimes orange sparkles floating in the air. They would appear out of the corner of my eye while I was talking to people, reading books, getting ready for bed, or watching TV. As soon as I looked directly at them, the glimmers were gone. They pulsed into my vision and then disappear. I thought I probably needed to get my eyes checked, so I dismissed it.
Then, one day, I had a thought. What if, maybe, possibly, hypothetically, these were from God? As I dove further into learning about the wild and powerful things of the Holy Spirit, the less wild this seemed and the more sparkles I saw.
For the first year or so, I saw a sparkle maybe once a week. Then, as I took more leaps of faith, I saw more. I remember one day I decided to quit my job before we had the financial means for me to responsibly do so. I felt like "the grace had lifted" for me to be there any longer. I truly believed God would honor my faith and provide for us. Just in case, I also prayed, "Lord, if I have this wrong and you did not tell me to leave, will you just honor that I genuinely thought I was being obedient." lol
I remember that night, about a year ago, I saw 5-6 within a few minutes and thought, "Wow, this is wild!"
As I grew in faith that God was beginning to open my eyes to the unseen realm, I saw more and more of these lights.
I began seeing orbs of blue lights that ranged from about the size of a fist to maybe a foot in size. Some lights appeared behind someone and had soft, fading edges, and were the kind of blue as the sky. I believe those ones are angels. Some lights are deep, saturated indigo, with sharp edges like a diamond, just half an inch large, and would twinkle on someone's face. I often see them in books or on artwork that are clearly influence by God. On powerful books I'll see 2-3 pulses of light appear on each page while reading. Sometimes while reading the Bible the whole page will start glitching a twinkling purple. I see them most in the evenings when light is dim, but have also see them in broad daylight. While praying I will see small twinkles when my eyes are closed, they'll be green, red, blue or white. When I see them in prayer, I often will see that prayer be answered within the hour or day. Many times, I will audibly gasp at the bright, super-saturated ones that appear in a room, you never quite get used to them. I asked the Holy Spirit what these were, but I didn't often get answers. What I do know is they represent the angelic or Holy Spirit, they reveal a concentration of spiritual realm activity coming out of the Kingdom of Heaven.
There are specific places in our home where I see blue lights regularly: to the right of the front door, to the left of the TV, and behind the chair Preston reads his Bible in the mornings. (I've included a painting of what it looks like when a light appears above.) I believe there are angels stationed in each of those corners.
When I paint, I see these little sparkles appearing on the canvas. I have decided to paint them exactly where and how I see them.
Something I have learned about God's love during this journey is that I will see sparkles appear on the faces of unsuspecting people—people who have run from God or stopped seeking Him. I felt the Holy Spirit say, "I never left them; My presence and My love for them doesn't change based on their love for Me."
What has been so cool about this journey is that other people closest to me have started to see the lights too! My husband Preston sees them, my girlfriends, and my sister even saw the exact same sparkle I saw!
If I had a moment to speak to my younger, more skeptical self, I would say: don't miss out on unique ways the Holy Spirit might reveal Himself to you. There's a reason Jesus said you'd have to be like a child to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Children don't doubt; they just believe. I'd rather lean toward looking for God in everything, because at least He might say, "Your faith was beautiful." If you choose to see, feel, and sense, you'll discover things that might surprise you. But isn't that the best part? That God will overwhelm you with immeasurably more than you could think or imagine?
When Jesus said He came to "proclaim freedom to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, and to set free those who are oppressed" (Luke 4:18), I think He meant this spiritually too. I believe part of what He came to do was to open our eyes. If this is something your spirit desires, then I pray in Jesus' name that He opens your eyes and removes your blindness so you can also see His constant presence and unfailing love all around you.
