Well over a month ago, the priest at our church was giving a homily about a young woman who was struggling with her faith. The priest told about how the young woman asked her grandmother why she couldn’t ‘feel’ God’s presence in her life. The young woman’s grandmother asked her to pray to be touched by God. So, the young woman did. As she was praying, the priest’s story continued, the young woman’s grandmother reached out and put her hand on her granddaughter’s shoulder.

When the young woman finished praying, she told her grandmother that she had felt God touch her. The grandmother admitted it had been her hand to touch the young woman, but that sometimes God chooses others to be the ones to reach out and ‘touch’ those who may need guidance.

About a week after that nice story had been told at Sunday mass, our family—minus Liam who had already left for work—was getting ready for school. I was in the kitchen and the kids were all seated at the table eating breakfast. Out of nowhere, Frances asked, “Mom, is it true that God can really touch people?”

I was deeply curious about her question, so I asked her why she wanted to know. She said, “Because I was just sitting here eating my breakfast and I felt something touch my head. And then, when I reached up with my hand to feel what it was, I couldn’t feel anything.”

Hmmm. First, I was stunned, because I thought to myself, “Wait a minute. You mean she’s actually paying attention in church, while she’s busy hustling up and down the pews, switching seats left and right, and pretend-reading the hymnals?” Then, I was somewhat astonished thinking that God had chosen my child to touch in the middle of a busy school day morning as I was hurriedly packing goldfish into a lunchbox compartment.

I don’t even remember how I answered her question, but about twenty minutes later, after the moment had been all but forgotten, Frances said, “Ooooohhhh. Now I know what happened.”

I, of course, was multitasking so hard, that I had no idea to what she was referring until she finished her explanation.

“My hair band broke. Silly me!”

Translation: The super duper tiny hair elastic must’ve snapped on Frances’s head. She, of course, reasoned that something invisible—God perhaps—must have had touched her, because when she reached her hand up, suspecting to feel something, she felt nothing. Until later, when the elastic decided to make itself known in the most revelatory way. Ha!

Guess our Frances isn’t the chosen one after all.