Signs and symbols

Signs and symbols.

For years I’ve been following signs and symbols, not just around the country when I became a nomad but before that when I started down my spiritual path in 2016. Everything had a meaning if I looked deep enough.

Angel numbers.

Spirit animals.

Colors.

Songs.

License plates.

Tarot/oracle cards.

Phrases.

I may not have known what everything meant all the time, but there was no shortage of signs that followed me around my day-to-day life.

As a nomad, I had many signs that were pretty regular— certain state license plates, moose anything, and the John Muir quote, “The mountains are calling and I must go.” The signs that were in my everyday life (whether they followed me or I followed them) were pretty much up to my own interpretation and intuition.

What’s interesting to me as I sift and sort through my journey the last few years is that there have also been signs rooted in the Bible. I never paid attention to them before because I had never read the Bible, nor did I have any interest in reading it.

For years on the road, I was following an energy around the country. It was the energy of my future partner, whom I called “Tyler”. I knew exactly what the energy felt like and knew I would know it as soon as I experienced it with someone. Many times when I experienced disappointment and heartache, I would crawl into bed and feel the energy of “Tyler” engulfing me.

In October 2019 as I was staying with a friend in Iowa for a few nights before heading back out west, I booked an Airbnb through my usual system of pulling out the atlas and pendulum and then reading the energy in the Airbnb listings to find the “perfect place”. As I’ve begun to walk away from New Age beliefs and practices, I definitely have some questions and doubts about who/what exactly was guiding me around the country, but given that I surrendered my life to God in 2016, I have to believe that on some level God was always protecting me.

After I booked my next place in Kansas before continuing onto Colorado, my friend received the message, “You’ll see signs for Tyler.”

When I walked into my Airbnb in Kansas, I saw lots of signs that could potentially have been guiding me toward “Tyler”. There was a moose above the fireplace, it had a cute cabin feel, and in the bathroom were two signs, “The mountains are calling and I must go” and “Adventure begins”.

There were other signs I was curious about and put them in my back pocket just in case they meant something down the road, but I was pretty sure they were just supplemental and to be honest, they didn’t really make sense.

Above the recliner in the corner was the word “faith”. Of course faith meant something to me but it didn’t mean to me then what it means to me now. Many times I thought I had unconditional faith but the truth is, I didn’t. I still don’t. I’m working each and every day towards surrendering more and cultivating deeper and deeper unconditional faith. But at that point in my life, what did I really have faith in? What was that faith actually rooted in? I wasn’t really sure.

The other sign that made no sense back then was Isaiah 54:10. I Googled it back then and naturally, I was confused:

For the mountains may move

and the hills disappear,

but even then my faithful love for you

will remain.

My covenant of blessing will never

be broken.

As I’ve been exploring my journey through Christianity (which is extremely new, many of you know), one of my biggest questions has been, “What do I trust? What information do I trust? As someone who has channeled for years and received intuitive hits on a regular basis, how do I know the source?”

I was recently told, “There are only two sources— God and Satan. There is no neutrality. All information you receive must first go through the grid of scripture.” Many of you may read that and completely disagree and want to throw it out. That is absolutely your right to do so. I find it fascinating. I have questions, doubts, fears, and uncertainties. I’m also willing to test it out in my own life to see just how powerful Jesus is.

I once read a book called The Surrender Experiment by Michael Singer. The gist of the book is that whatever life asked of him, he said “yes”. It didn’t matter whether he wanted to do it or not; if life was asking it of him, he said “yes”. In some ways, I practiced that as a nomad. I said “yes” and traveled to places I didn’t necessarily want to go to (Phoenix, for example) in order to see what gift and lesson was waiting for me. The practice of surrendering fascinates me and I’d be lying if I told you surrendering to living based on the teachings of the Bible doesn’t fascinate me, as well.

How would my life change and transform if I believed there are only two sources— God and Satan? Where would my life be led if I ran all information through the grid of scripture and made decisions through that lens? What if I was less impulsive and waited to make sure it was really God guiding me and nothing else?

As I’ve spent my days connecting with Jesus, praying, reading the Bible, and removing other spiritual paraphernalia out of my home, I have come to the conclusion that the energy I was following around the country wasn’t “Tyler”. It was Jesus. That energy is unmistakable and anyone who has experienced it knows exactly what I’m talking about. Nothing in the world compares to being engulfed in that amount of love.

Yesterday as I returned home from the store, I was stopped dead in my tracks by a rainbow across the alley from my back door. Today as I reflected on what to write, I searched rainbow symbolism in the Bible. Of course, I was brought back to the book of Isaiah. I was led to the verse immediately before 54:10.

Isaiah 54:9

Just as I swore in the time of Noah

that I would never again let a flood cover the earth,

so now I swear

that I will never again be angry and

punish you.

We see rainbows after storms and it is supposedly the sign that the earth will no longer be destroyed by a flood.

When we’ve had our lives seemingly destroyed, it can feel harder and harder to have faith in God. But seeing that rainbow yesterday guided me back to Isaiah: