Hello, it’s Thursday morning again! Where I live, warmer weather is trying to displace the frigid remains of winter. I have a feeling we’ll go straight to hot weather, with very little spring.

I was reading an article about how dogs sense things humans can’t. Of course, their excellent hearing helps, and the fact they can smell a cookie from one end of the house to another. But they also pick up on things like earthquakes, approaching storms, and of course, the occasional house fire.

They also alert you to critters passing in the night, which can sometimes be annoying. Reading this article reminded me of a family trait of ours. They said Grandma had a sensitive nature. She seemed to know when something wasn’t right with one of her kids. Apparently, she passed that down to me.

The first time (that I remember) happened when I was nine or ten. My brothers and I were spending the weekend at Grandma’s, or maybe it was spring break. I had an odd feeling, like something bad was going to happen. While helping Grandma with the dishes, I mentioned it.

“Can you know when something bad is gonna happen?”

She didn’t say much, but I could see she was thinking about it. “Sometimes the Lord prompts us to pray.”

Before we’d finished the dishes, a car pulled into the driveway. It was Uncle Bud. He had bad news. My dad had been in a car accident and ended up in the hospital. He would be all right, but Uncle Bud had come to take us home.

I never forgot that feeling. I’ve had it many times over the years. I grew up, married, and gave birth to three sons. We were living on a couple of acres. My three guys were five, three, and two. There was an old pond in the woods next to our back lot. The pond had been let go and was covered with scum. I fretted over it, afraid my boys would wander over there.

Three nights in a row, I had a bad dream. The dream always ended the same way. I couldn’t find the boys, and was frantically looking for them. Then I saw four little bodies floating face down on the pond. I’d wake up, heart racing, and terrified. I kept the boys close, never letting them out of my sight.

After a death in the extended family, my parents attended the funeral. My mother called from there to tell me my cousin’s little boy had drowned in a neighbor’s pool. They’d been able to resuscitate him, but he was in a coma. I immediately thought of the dream. There had been four little boys in the pond. My little cousin was the same age as my middle son.

This has continued through the years. I’ve had a bad feeling, or an intuition that something wasn’t right. Sometimes, I found out what it was, and other times, I never knew. I remembered what Grandma said, “Sometimes, the Lord prompts us to pray.” I used these as unctions to pray for whoever may be in harm’s way.

I’m not always forewarned, but it happens enough to make me think I inherited Grandma’s sensitive nature.

I used this natural wonder in my fantasy-fiction “Jael of Rogan” series. Jael had a much stronger ability to sense when something was coming. Her abilities included greater visual acuity, and she could hear sounds from miles away—a helpful gift when you live all alone in the wilderness and have a strong and wily enemy. For more information on the books, you can click the “books” tab above.

Have you ever experienced anything like this, or known someone who has? If so, I’d love to hear about it.

Thanks so much for the gift of your time today!