I Saw a Sign in Florence: Asking for Signs & Choosing Faith

Asking for signs wasn’t really my thing, but what happens when I find one anyway?

It was after a night of being silly and having fun (I may or may not have eaten a fly for a Euro) in Athens that I started praying about my future husband. I remember walking up the hostel stairs and thinking, “This could really be something,” even though I’d only just started to get to know Garrett.

From that day on, I prayed to know if he was the one for me and if this relationship was an important one. Mind you, we were still just friends, but I think we both knew this was something different.

About a week after I started praying about this man, I found myself roaming the city of Florence, Italy with him. Coincidentally, we were somewhat lost and very hungry.

We walked down the cobblestone streets of Florence looking for somewhere to eat and were surprisingly out of luck. Then we passed this storefront with a little wooden plank in the window that said, “If you’re looking for a sign, this is it.”

I can imagine that my eyes probably widened and I immediately thought of the question I’d been pondering in my mind for days. Garrett turned to me and asked, “Have you been wondering about something?” and I denied that I had. For the rest of our study abroad, I would think back to that sign and wonder…

But the thing is, I wasn’t asking for a sign. I never prayed asking for proof that this was the right guy for me. I prayed for knowledge and confirmation through the Spirit.

Because when you ask for a sign, you’re saying that you aren’t willing to have faith.

We hear about people doing this a lot with God. You know, give me a sign you’re real. Give me a sign that you’re listening. When we ask these things, we are saying that we’re not willing to have faith in God. We need to know. But a big part of living this life is not knowing. How on earth could we have faith if we knew with scientific fact of the existence of God?

Because we don’t have proof about how this world was formed and what happens after we die, we have to make our own decision about whether to have faith and believe in God or not.

That to me is a testimony builder. Because we can’t prove how the Earth was created or whether or not this was all an accidental bang, we have to have faith and choose to believe in God and the plan of salvation. Having faith is part of what it takes to return to Heavenly Father after this life and if we could scientifically prove everything about religion than faith wouldn’t exist. We would just know.

I don’t see the sign in Florence as a ‘sign’ that he was the one.

It was funny and kind of ironic, but it didn’t have any impact whatsoever in my decision to choose Garrett as my eternal companion.

After I spent all day with Garrett for weeks during the study abroad and then left to go back home alone, it was easy to see that I needed him in my life. I knew the moment I boarded the plan to leave for Oklahoma City that I loved him. It didn’t have anything to do with a silly sign.

I knew because it was something I felt. I could just feel that this was right. And that’s what a confirmation from the Spirit often feels like for me.

A feeling from the Spirit is something that’s deeply personal and at times a very powerful emotion. It doesn’t come in the physical embodiment of a sign. And isn’t that feeling more extraordinary than any sign you could ever see?

Signs aren’t necessarily bad. Sometimes they can remind us of our faith and hope in Christ. But the point is that the Spirit can be so much more powerful than a sign.

Just for fun, tell me how you met your sweetie in the comments below OR share your thoughts on signs and the Spirit. I want to learn from you!

Hearts,

Rachel