vague stirrings

(excerpt from Traveling Mercies, Anne Lamott)

...A memory came to me then, of our pastor telling us just the week before how she gets direction from God in prayer; she said that when she prays for direction, one spot of illumination always appears just beyond her feet, a circle of light into which she can step. She moved away from the pulpit to demonstrate, stepping forward shyly into an imagined spotlight, and then, after standing there looking puzzled, she moved another step forward to where the light had gone, two feet ahead of where she had been standing, and then again.

"We in our Faith work," she said, "stumble along toward where we think we're supposed to go, bumbling along, and here is what's so amazing--we end up getting exactly where we are supposed to be."

But I couldn't discern even what direction to face. And I didn't understand why as usual God couldn't give me a loud or obvious answer, through a megaphone or thunder, skywriting or stigmata. Why does God always use dreams, intuition, memory, phone calls, vague stirrings in my heart? I would say that this really doesn't work for me at all.

Except that it does.