The Story Behind the Clovers

If you’ve followed me for a while, you’ve probably seen clovers pop up here and there.

But I’m not sure I’ve ever actually told you why.

And to tell that story, I have to go all the way back to when I was a kid.

I grew up on 20 acres, back before cell phones and hundreds of TV channels gave us something to do every second of the day. We lived far enough outside of town that I couldn’t just hop on my bike and ride down the street to a friend’s house.

So I spent a lot of time outside.

I explored the woods. I wandered around our property. And somewhere along the way, I started searching for four-leaf clovers.

It became a thing.

Anytime I saw a patch of clover—at home or somewhere else—I’d look.

Years passed.

And then came May of 2013.

The Night Everything Changed

I was getting my hair done one evening when my husband called.

He told me it wasn’t life or death, but I needed to meet him at the hospital. Avery had hurt herself.

I was almost home and told him I was about to turn into his parents’ subdivision, so I could follow him or he could ride with me.

As I turned onto their road, I saw his dad’s truck.

He stopped in the middle of the road, jumped out, came to my window and said something I couldn’t immediately process:

He didn’t know exactly what had happened, but Steve said Avery had cut her finger off.

My mind went blank.

Then I saw Steve.

He was barefoot, carrying our 18-month-old daughter. There was blood all over both of them.

Avery wasn’t crying. She looked lethargic. It was around her bedtime, so I didn’t know if she was simply exhausted or if she had lost too much blood.

They got into my car, and Steve held her, rocking her back and forth.

It was the first time I had ever seen him cry.

There was a version of me who would have been furious.

How did this happen? Why weren’t you watching her? How could you let this happen?

But something had already begun changing in our home.

In the months before that night, Steve had found his faith. And slowly, consistently, he had been planting seeds in me—not by preaching at me, but by showing me the love of Jesus through his actions.

So instead of getting angry, I looked at him and could see he was already blaming himself enough for both of us.

And I said something that, at the time, was completely foreign to me.

“Let’s pray.”

I put my hand over Avery as I drove to the hospital, and we prayed.

I didn’t really know how.

I wasn’t entirely sure who I was praying to.

But I prayed anyway.

The Bible Stand

Avery had been playing near a heavy wooden stand in our kitchen. It stood about waist-high on our hardwood floors and had a drawer where we kept pens and notepads.

Steve had recently started leaving his Bible on top of it.

Our son had started calling it “the Bible stand.”

Our curious little 18-month-old, wearing footie pajamas, tried to get into the drawer. When she put her weight against the front of the stand, her feet slid one direction while the stand slid the other.

The drawer came down on three of her tiny fingers.

Three fingertips were crushed, and her middle finger was severed, although thankfully it remained attached by enough skin to maintain circulation.

We were transferred to a children’s hospital in St. Louis, where a plastic surgeon operated on her.

After a long night, we were finally released around 6:00 the next morning.

Avery, somehow, slept through much of it. Apparently even a traumatic hand injury wasn’t going to interfere with that girl’s bedtime routine.

Mom and Dad weren’t quite so lucky.

The Morning Everything Changed

After maybe two or three hours of sleep, Avery woke up bright-eyed and ready for the day.

I was exhausted.

But outside was one of those rare May mornings that feels almost impossible to describe.

The air was crisp. The temperature was perfect. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky.

It was the kind of weather you wish you could bottle and keep for every day of the year.

I picked Avery up and carried her outside.

I took my shoes off.

After everything that had happened, I needed fresh air. I needed to feel the grass underneath my feet.

As I walked through the yard holding her, I looked down.

There, in a patch of clover, was a four-leaf clover.

Plain as day.

If you’ve ever searched for them, you know what usually happens. You think you see four leaves, reach down excitedly—and realize it’s actually three.

Not this one.

I picked it.

Then I saw another.

And another.

And another.

There were so many that I couldn’t keep holding them while carrying Avery.

I went inside, put her safely in her swing and laid the clovers on the table.

Then I went back outside.

I remember thinking there was no way I’d even find the same patch again.

I did.

And immediately, I found another.

Then another.

Then a five-leaf clover.

And then a six-leaf clover.

I didn’t even know those existed.

I couldn’t pick them fast enough.

And then—

I stopped.

Okay, God.

I don’t know how else to describe what happened next except that I could feel God trying desperately to get my attention.

So I dropped to my knees in the grass.

I closed my eyes.

And I spoke to a Jesus I didn’t really know yet.

“Okay. IF You are everything they say You are. IF You really are this forgiving God who makes all things new…take it all. Take away the shame of my past. Take my bitterness. Take my resentment toward my husband. Take all of it. I don’t want it anymore. I can’t do this on my own.”

And then something happened that I still can’t adequately explain thirteen years later.

I felt a breeze sweep over me.

And I knew.

The Holy Spirit entered my soul.

It was radical.

It was undeniable.

When I opened my eyes, everything looked different.

The sky was a shade of blue I had never seen before.

The trees were a shade of green I didn’t know existed.

I had been blind.

And suddenly, I could see.

I looked over at my husband.

He could see it in me, too.

He knew something had happened.

And for the first time in years, I looked at him with love.

With forgiveness.

Something had changed.

I had changed.

I Kept the Clovers

I framed every one of those clovers.

Not long after that morning, I was baptized privately in a lake.

Then I stood in front of our church congregation and shared my testimony.

And I brought the framed clovers with me.

Proof, at least to me, of the morning God met me in my yard.

We’ve moved several times since then, and somewhere along the way that frame was packed away. I’m actually not sure where it is today.

I need to find it.

But I’m grateful I carried it onto that stage all those years ago. There are people who saw it. People who saw those clovers with their own eyes.

And maybe that’s part of why what happened this year stopped me in my tracks.

Thirteen Years Later

In January 2026, I published my memoir, Faith at a Crossroads.

It tells the story of my life, my failures, my faith, and the God who met me in the middle of all of it.

And then, one month later, something happened.

Mumford & Sons released a new album.

If you’ve read my story, you know that isn’t just some random band to me. They have been my favorite band for years, and their music—particularly Babel—was part of the way God began getting my attention back in the summer of 2012.

Before the clovers.

Before the prayer.

Before I knew what He was doing.

So thirteen years after that morning in my yard…

One month after my story was finally published…

My favorite band released a new album.

And the title of the final song?

Clover.

You can call that coincidence.

I’m okay with that.

But I know what clovers mean to me.

They remind me of a little girl with a bandaged hand.

A barefoot walk through the grass after one of the longest nights of my life.

A woman on her knees who wasn’t even sure how to pray.

A God she wasn’t sure she knew.

And a prayer that began with “IF.”

I don’t search every patch of clover anymore.

I don’t need to.

Because every time I see one, I remember the morning I stopped asking whether God was real…

and started knowing Him.

And that is the story behind the clovers.