God - Part ll

What does one now, say about God.  I've shared my experience, my struggles - and that I knew (not as much as I do now) that God was with me...  The only part that I did not include was the surgeries, the infections, and the like, but that isn't what I want to write about.  I doubt that this is anything one would want to read.  Those were extremely hard times.  However, I did heal.  

Healing is to me multifaceted. There are times when the emotional pain is so brutal, you do not think you will survive it.  I've had times when I've been so ill, I've actually prayed for death.  I look back now and regret this - but I could not see an end to the suffering.  And this, would cause some people to say, "there is no God."  I'm here to tell you - He brought me healing, in a most unusual way.  God always does things in such a way that is unique.  It has happened in my life where I absolutely knew, it was a miracle from God.  It is usually a subtle, quiet answer that comes from an unlikely source.  God does not do things boastfully.  At least He has not in my life.  He is gracious, humble, and so compassionate - working through other people most of the time.  This is where I think most people don't see that it is really God, nor give Him credit where credit's due.  God works through people, all the time.  

People expect great and wondrous things to happen with God, like Santa Claus- and God can do this - no problem, but often times he chooses to be quiet and work in the background of our lives.  I've said it over and over, the miracles are there, if a person chooses to look for them.  He wants us to have new eyes.  To be open to beauty - kindness - compassion - to live a open hearted life.  The Holy Spirit (if a person is a believer) will guide and direct you.  That nudging, that gut feeling, I call it - is the Holy Spirit guiding you.  A person has to get still enough, and quiet enough to listen, and know themselves to recognize this inner voice.  It is easy to blow off - but if we want the lives He would have us to have - we will listen and be obedient.  

God is not vengeful, angry, nor wrathful.  Much to many's identification of Him. How could He have given His only Son for us, if He were?  How much more compassion could He have had for us?  To have planned to (it began back in the Old Testament) become man, come to earth - heal, teach, mentor --- everything that Jesus did during His life - all while knowing He would eventually die a horrible death.  Jesus did this willingly, for US.  All of us, and future generations.  So that we may have life, and life everlasting through His suffering, death, and resurrection.  He bore all of the burden, upon Himself.  He did this in human flesh.  He bore it for our salvation, and did so willingly.  This to me, is the ultimate of sacrifices.  What a heart of compassion beyond man's comprehension!!!  Then for man (and women) to think that God is mad, vengeful, and wrathful?  This I don't understand.  

The God that I know, loves beyond any earthly understanding we will ever have.  A love that we will never fully comprehend at any time while we are on earth.  The problem being, in most churches today - we are told what we do wrong - over and over - every Sunday - it's pounded into us.  As if we have to be "re-saved" every week, we're so unworthy.  A person gets saved once, once you believe upon Christ - you are saved FOR LIFE.  We may struggle, but we do not loose our Grace.  The free gift of Grace that Jesus gave to us upon the cross.  Just read the new Testament - read Apostle Paul's Grace messages - and you will know unequivocally that you are saved, "by Grace alone." We are not under the Law, any longer.  Law brings sin consciousness.  No one could live under the Law, that is why Jesus came.  Jesus was the final Lamb of God.  The final price was paid in Jesus, on the cross when He said, "IT IS FINISHED!"  

We do a disgrace to the price Jesus paid, when we feel like we have to work for our salvation.  Do good - to get good.  Grace is a gift - you never have to work for a gift.  If you have to work for it, it isn't a gift.  Jesus paid it all.  God knew what He was doing - and we cheapen the cross when we feel like we have to pay for it.  Once a person understands, Christ shines through you.  You have no desire to sin.  This has radically changed my life.  It's called radical Grace.  I've often spoken of my church - Midland - and Paul White Ministries.  All of his sermons are free online to download - and listen to online.  The website is www.paulwhiteministeries.org.  It is a message like no other - The Grace message.  Grace churches are popping up all over.  

I join my church this Sunday - and I am so excited.  God has done amazing things for me this past year.  I had an interview yesterday for a counseling job.  I have not interviewed for my chosen field in 12 years.  I'm doing freelance work - and the thing about it is that God has healed me, throughout this past year.  I could not even bring myself to do a resume, because of the way that I felt about myself.  The regret and shame that I had from the mistakes from my past.  I know now that I am a child of the Living God.  I am the righteousness of God in Christ.  My life has been transformed - in the year I've been at Midland.  God has done for me, what I could have never done for myself.  I'm deeply loved, and highly favored - God knows the desires of my heart.  I love Him more deeply that I ever have before - and it just keeps growing.  I cannot tell you all of the good things that have/are happening in my life - and two short years ago I was as close to homelessness as they come.  Everything that I owned (basically my clothes and shoes) was in my car.  I was a wreck.  But God has changed all of that, and so much more.  

So God?  It is personal, He is my closest confidante, my hope, my everything.  He is loving beyond our comprehension.  He is infinite, omniscient, omnipresent, and real.  I love Him with all my heart.  This is God.

God

How does one begin to write about God?  For me, it has to be my personal experience.  

My Father took me to church as a wee child.  I learned about Jesus and the disciples.  I was taught all the bible stories, by very kind people.  From there, it was my Grandmother that took me.  My Grandmother was, and still is even though she passed a long time ago now, one of the best versions of the Christian walk - I've ever known.  She was the kindest, most giving, humble person I think I've ever known.  She did not just talk the talk, but she walked the walk.  I admired her greatly.  As I did my Father.  My Dad was very gentle as well as kind - but Daddy had a bit of an ego in him.  I know what pushed him to this limit -- as many things in life will.  However, I am immensely grateful for both of them - for laying the foundation of a Godly life for me.  I believe that it is the greatest and most important task that a parent has, to teach them the things of God.  

I went astray in my teens - until a friend asked me to go to church with her.  She was so excited about her church.  Being that I knew this was "the right thing," and looked up to her - I went to a revival that her church was having.  It changed my life forever.  I was a mere 13 years old.  

Now this could be then end of this blog - but as with life -- things happened, as with the period between when I stopped going to church with Grandma.  Life was not kind.  My family was very dysfunctional.  The church that I joined was glorious, and my experience, wonderful.  Then there came the day when the pastor was leaving.  I had adored him.  Brother Bill was the glue that held us together - or at least in my ripe christian life, so I thought.  I had made him sort of an idol.  I was not mature enough to understand.  I was devastated.  God was strong in me, but I was not strong in God - and there is such a circumstance.  My foundation had not been built.  Yet and still, the Holy Spirit was inside of me.  I would find my way back home, but it would be many long years.  

I attended church throughout my life.  I would feel God's presence and I never forgot how to pray.  I knew that I was a child of God - but because of the things that I'd done, and would do- felt so unworthy.  My addiction actually began in my teenage years.  I had two brothers that we active users, and I knew all about drugs.  My middle brother got me high for the first time in sixth grade.  I was drinking by age 11.  My addiction plagued my school years and I barely passed high school.  I married right out of school and proceeded to use in my marriage - until it too ended.  I nearly had  a nervous breakdown at 21.  I had health problems -  chronic headaches and migraines.  I became addicted to pain killers.  I really would do any drug that I could get my hands on because of the abuse that I'd suffered as a child - and having had a narcissistic mother.  To put it bluntly - I was a wreck.  A shell of a person, overcome with emotional pain.  I had no idea how to deal with any of it.  So I'd swallow anything that I thought might make it go away.....But God was with me.  

After several more years of this and a divorce - bars, bad relationships, and my addiction taking to heights I hate to even think about - I agreed to go to treatment in 1987.  The ripe age of 24.  Before I knew it I was on a plane to Minnesota - my first plane ride ever - to meet someone at the baggage claim to take me to Hazelden.  I was terrified.  It had been actually, by divine intervention that I'd came to the help that I did.  And God was with me.  

I sobered up - for 9 years.  Went to college - and became a counselor.  It was the highlight of my life.  I had succeeded for the first time in my life.  But - after a while I started making bad choices.  I was in pain after a fall - a bad fall.  At the tale's end of nine years, I was in a bad relationship that I could not seem to get out of -- and a doctor prescribed a muscle relaxer.  It was not supposed to be narcotic - nor habit forming.  It was.  I knew better - but I kept on taking it.  It was my downfall.  What a downfall it was.  I was soon using and counseling at the same time.  I regret this to this day.  The pain of this has ran so deeply in me, it has taken me years - to try and overcome it.  I lost everything that meant anything to me.  But God was with me.......

The pain ruled my life for the next 12+ years.  I've been reclusive - so full of shame.  Shame is a horrible emotion.  One that tells you, you don't have the right to exist.  It tells you, everyone would be better off if you didn't.  I was so wounded - because I am such a creature of integrity - but I'd went against everything I stood for.  I blamed myself for my addiction.  

So much happened in those years. I was sexually harassed at the last job I worked.  It was a nightmare.  I feared for my life.  He was insane.  I began drinking daily when I'd won the case - and he got 18 days off without pay.  When he returned - he started in on me again and I broke down.  They gave me two weeks off with pay.  I drank for two weeks straight.  Pain once again had almost devoured me.  I went to treatment again - and this time is was humiliating.  There I sat, as a counselor - being taught what I already knew.  One can imagine the pain of this.  But God was with me.....

These last few years have been just as hard.  The medicine, the surgeries.  I've had no choice but to take the medicine.  High doses of it.  To the point of passing out.  Often times I'd wake up on the floor in my apartment - especially when I had the internal pain pumps.   The pain was so intense, they could not give me enough medicine to stop it without almost knocking me out.  My family stayed angry with me because I was forever falling asleep.  It was a horrible existence.  So I stayed to myself.  I grieved, even in the midst of the medicine - I talked to God.  I grieve and grieved and grieved.  I prayed and prayed and prayed.  I had various infections due to the pain pumps.  I once had to have antibiotics shipped in dry ice and administered I.V. I had such a bad infection.  I did that for three months.  It was horrible.  Nurses in the house everyday, and I could not go anywhere.  I had a two inch deep hole in my side - that had to heal from the inside out.  It was where the pain pump was.   But God was with me.......

I tell you all off this to let you know, I've been through some things.  Some very difficult things.    About 17 surgeries - from assorted things.  My life has not been an easy one.  I've been in and out of church.  I've came off massive amounts of pain medicine... and the withdrawal was horrific.  I've struggled with depression for 22 years.  The tip of the iceberg was when my Father passed in 2010.  The events that ensued then, were life changing.  I got my Medtronic stimulator a month prior to his death.  This was to be a new lease on life.  Little did I know that my life was about to be torn apart.  But God was with me..........

Geographical cures, spending spree's, relationships, food, drugs, just about everything there is to try to cover the wounds of life -- I've tried it.  The only thing that works, is hard grief work and God.  I've had years and years of therapy as well.  Therapy helps, but Jesus is my ultimate Counselor.  Him, I don't have to pay to listen to me.  He speaks to me through my heart.  

For all intensive reasons, I shouldn't be alive - some of the really insane things that I've done.  The dangerous positions that I've put myself in.  The mixing of narcotics.  I cannot tell you the number of times I've passed out.  I've shared that I woke up once after catching my hair on fire with a cigarette.  I've burned mattresses, couches, and everything in between.  But God was with me.  

God's mercy.  It's almost unexplainable.  Most people see God as angry and revengeful.  I discovered, He is not mad at me, and He is not mad at you.  This is Grace - what Jesus gave us upon the Cross.  Grace.  It is the only thing that keeps me going.  My faith, and the internal knowing that if it had not been for Him, I could not have made it through what I did - little alone have healed from it.  I found a church that is indescribable - and it is my home.  I'm at peace for the first time in my life.  Even with all of the junk (to put it mildly) that I've been through - He still loves me and has a plan for my life.  I've seen miracles happen in my (as messed up as they come) family.  God's grace is astounding.  If He can turn my life around - to where I live in peace just think what He can do for you.  He did not come to save the righteous - the righteous don't need God.  He came for those of us with difficult lives - to heal and restore.  And heal and restore, He does.  Prayer works.  God is greater than I can comprehend - yet my personal Savior.  God is:  My everything.  

Gratitude~Pain

Gratitude: The quality of being thankful.  It arises from the heart.  It is a condition of the mind and heart.  It makes one appreciate people, places and things.  Simple things - hot water.  Good food.  Roofs over our heads.  It is very basic for me, it is the manner in which I choose to live.  It is an attitude.  A mindset.

My first thought upon waking is usually about pain.  This is because I live in pain.  I deal with it everyday, 24 hours a day.  Except when I'm sleeping.  The first thing, most generally, I do is get my medicine - unless I turn on the coffee pot on the way.  Do I like living in such a manner?  No.  Alas, this is the hand that I've been dealt.  So one much assimilate.  The medicine only works to a point - and I must deal with the rest.  I must deal with it whether I'm cooking, driving, sitting, standing, working, or resting - because it is always there.  Someone once told me to befriend it - and I guess I have.

We have choices in life, many we do not even realize.  Our minds become so focused upon our circumstances that we miss alternatives.  The proverbial forest for the trees adage.  My pain has taught me lessons.  The physical pain has taught me and the emotional pain has taught me.  It's taught me that there are realms beyond what we experience that can be experienced by the mind.  I can get so immersed in what I'm doing that I forget the pain.  I'm extremely thankful for those times.  I've learned the less I focus upon it, the less it focuses upon me.  This is true of everything in life.  When we put all of our energies into something, it grows to tremendous proportions.  The same is true of gratitude.

We can live our lives in "thankfulness".  We can see beauty when there was none, if we but choose.  We can see wonder in our daily lives all around us - if we have an open heart.  An open heart to experience, to forgiveness, to learning and to love life.  In the midst of what our televisions sets tells us is a negative, angry world - we can have peace.  If I can do it, and experience pain levels that I do - and have the history that I have, so can anyone else.  If I can have hit bottom, started over with nothing but clothes and shoes in my car - so can anyone else.  Richness comes from inside.  It is a heart-speak. It is a conditioning of the mind, a mental attitude.  

Think of the things that matter in your life.  Focus on life's goodness. Pull from your heart what makes your heart sing.  Let that be the fuel in which you live your life.  One cannot but be filled with joy - when our priorities take precedence over our negative tendencies.  The 'so called' little things that we take for granted - would stop us in our tracks if they were not there for one day.  Why not find pleasure in them?  Why not give glory where glory is due for the things that keep us going - day in and day out? It is a very simple principle to live by.  I think you will find it will grow on you - as you begin to have a thankful disposition.  

Gratitude, even in the state of pain - cannot but expand the mind.  It cannot but expand the heart.  A heart-fullness that leads to an expectant and open life.  A life that is rich, and full of hope.  Hope for today, hope for tomorrow and the ability to see miracles when they happen.  They do happen - we live in an infinitely wondrous universe.  We have a God that can do all things.  He sprinkled the stars - and set the universe into being.  He wants us to be thankful and at peace.  At rest.  To trust.  Expect great things, because they do happen, despite what the world will tell you.  He answers prayer.  

Gratitude is a wonderful feeling.  Pain is a part of my life.  I choose to be thankful, despite the fact that I don't have everything that I wish I did.  I believe  in time, as it is to be, my prayers well be answered.  That is what trust is about.  I have enough peace to wait, and be thankful along the way.  It makes for a much more abundant life.  I thank God for my abundance.  Even when there is lack.  True riches come from the heart.  It is a bounty that cannot be measured in monetary scales.  There is no price I would place upon it.  

Find yourself being thankful for the things that are a constant in your life.  Things that you don't normally think about.  See if your heart does not become full.  See if you outlook upon life does not change.  Let that feeling build from that place.  Open your heart to the things that matter in you life.  See them for what they are - blessings. 

Faith/Freedom

I'm heading into a direction in my life that I never thought I'd venture into again.  It's a miracle, actually.  After everything that I've been through, the course that my life is taking, is nothing short of a personal miracle. 

They happen, miracles.  If we but look.  Sometimes small, sometimes large - but they are out there.  I think a person has to be open to them, and ready to receive.  I think it takes an open heart.  An expectant heart.  Not the kind of "expectations", where we are demanding of God - not like this - but more in a humble manner.  One filled with give and take.  One who's life is like that of the tree - who bends and arks with the winds of life.  The subtle changes of it's vibrancy.  

I've been through a great deal of changes.  Even crisis's one would say.  Personal hell.  More than once, I've had to start from bottom up.  I still say, if we have noting to loose, we have everything to gain.  This is where the real lessons come from.  When the rubber meets the road of life.  I've spent my time in the fetal position, grieving with God.  Asking my savior to extinguish my pain - but He did not - not until I was done.  The wounds must heal.  Oh, I've tried every band-aide.  But, none of them work - except the healing work.  The gut level, "oh my God, I'm going to die if I have to feel this another second," kind of pain.  The pure unadulterated, unable to breathe, pain.  The only way out.  You can't buy it, sleep with it, eat your way out of it, nor win enough money to forget it, sleep through it, it will still be there waiting on you.  Waiting on you in your new clothes, with your new boyfriend, your winnings, and with your gained weight.  It does not sleep.  Pain waits lifetimes.  You might as well just deal with it and get it over.  There is freedom on the other side.  Beautiful freedom.  This is where the faith comes in.  The faith that once you start this journey - that it will, in fact --- end.  That it is worth it's price.  

Freedom has it's privileges.  It's called peace.  I think few people have peace of mind.  Little alone, do people have peace in their hearts.  This is the true keeper of peace - the soul.  I believe our minds process the matters of the heart.  We've given our minds a gargantuan job.  What if we were to let our hearts speak our minds?  What if we lived from our hearts?  It would be an interestingly different world.  Because we guard our hearts with our minds.  We guard our hearts at all cost.  We become offended at the simplest of matters.  We personalize everything - because we're so wounded.  My question is, who's fault is this?  Who is responsible that we're so wounded?  If personal pain is our personal responsibility - why do we throw it upon the universe?  Why do we have the tendency to blame everyone and every thing outside ourselves for what is wrong with the insides of us?  

I think it is because we have no faith.  We have no place in which we feel we can turn.  We have lost hope.  The world had rather focus upon negative things, murder and mayhem than things of beauty and wonder.  We'd rather take the easy way-out than take responsibility for ourselves.  No one wants to do the work it takes to forge towards wholeness.  Many people don't even think it possible.  Yet look at the vastness of the world we live in.  The riches we partake in each and everyday.  We can be such an ungrateful lot. 

I am living proof that pain will not kill you.  Not physical pain, not emotional pain.  It has a beginning and an end.  Is it a journey?  Yes.  Will people, circumstances, angels even - present themselves along the way?  A resounding "yes!"  We do not have to be walking wounded.  We can heal.  Faith is a real thing.  We all have it, we just sometimes don't know that we do.  We have faith that our cars will start - we have faith that the sun will rise - we look for the rainbow after the storm.  These things we take for granted.  These are the substances of the elements of faith.  Why would it be so hard for us to believe that there is a creator that has our best interest (and more if you know my blog) at heart?  Something much greater than we are that will guide us towards healing and wholeness.  Just think about it -- what keeps the candle flame lit when there's air everywhere?  How is it that our cells just know to completely recycle everyday?  All of these things are miracles.  If we but LOOK.  

I'm on a path back to my career after everything I've been through.  God has made a way when there was none.  All of this has transpired out of my helping someone.  Now someone is going to help me.  It has been 12 years since I've been able to work in my field.  I took care of my Father for eight of those years, went back to college two of them, went through numerous surgeries, and did a lot of healing.  Grief is mixed all in there.  Body grief, mind grief and soul grief.  The cathartic period was when my Father passed.  It was the pivotal  point.  I thought it would break me.  It is true what they say, 'that which does not kill you, makes you stronger.'  I'm superwoman.  I have faith and I'm free.  

Unblocking the Heart.

I'm learning how to feel the pain as I go.  Instead of closing my heart in constant fear, I'm learning how to process things in the order in which they happen.  It's a burning sensation, and it does not kill me.  For this is what I feared - that the emotion would be my end.  So I barricaded myself up - like fort Knocks, in anticipation of emotion.  The only problem is, I lived in a constant state of fear.  Fear is not the way I want to live.  Fear of every encounter - fear - even in my own living environment.  

Shallow breath.  Tightened shoulders.  A magnified mind.  Watching my own thoughts.  That crushing feeling in my chest - so tight at times, I felt as if I'd have a heart attack.  Anxiety.  These are the things of fear.  Fear of what?  Fear of whom?  I did not even know.  Problems of the day - to the point of feeling ill inside.  Panic.  Feelings of severe distress.  All inside my mind.  A mind that I'd somehow told to safeguard my heart - from life.  How can this be?  How can the mind be given such a task?  It cannot.  It simply cannot protect us from matters of the heart.  It is a death sentence.

Some how intrinsically I knew it had to stop.  I knew by listening to my own self that something had to give - I was either going to  have a stroke or a heart attack.  Awe, there's the meds - but isn't that just a bandaid over a gunshot wound?  Somehow I had to get to the heart-matter.  For this was a heart problem ...  Not a matter for the mind to solve.

 I'm not a creature that dislikes change, I've prayed to my God.  I've prayed countless times for release of pain, and answers to various emotional problems that I have.  Here as of late, however, I've had several challenges.  Challenges with depression, identity issues, work, and life.  I'm trying to start my life over after difficult losses, and trauma.  A vat of emotional pain.  I've basically lost everything that meant anything to me, including the one person that I truly depended upon in this universe.  My sole connector - my Dad.  This has altered my life, beyond words.  The events that ensued, were devastating.  It has been earth shattering.  Now I am in process of rebuilding my life from the ground up.  The possessions did not mean that much - but the events and the trauma altered my life drastically.  Yet, it has taught me more than I can articulate - and strengthened me farther than I thought possible.  I've came farther that I once thought capable - having to start with really tiny baby steps - after a long period of being frozen in pain.  I've been through the gamut.  

I'm now functioning, or at least attempting to put my life back together, after the collapse.  The difficulty being, I keep running into fear.  I am more than tired of it.  It exhausts me.  I'm learning that although I thought I'd done exceptional grief work - fear abounds.  Fear feeds upon itself.  The more fear you have, the more you WILL have.  One thing tells you to be frightened of something else -- and so on.  

The answer?  Realize that fear is running your life, ruining your life.  I'm reading an exceptional book - "The Untethered Soul," by Michael A. Singer.  Warning!  It is not for the faint of heart.  It is a very difficult endeavor - this voyage to the bottoms of the psyche - the center of the soul...  This book offers what I love, love, love, HOPE.  I am a hope junkie.  I dispensed it when I worked, and I guess one would say I still do now.  We do not have to live life in 'fight or flight' mode.  There is an answer - and it is in these pages.  One can live with their heart open to life, love, beauty, and wonder.  It is what I've been searching for, for a long - long time.  

This book really came to me via the Divine.  I have been on this quest - and have been trying to monitor my own thoughts.  This book begins with paying attention to your own thoughts - and it was as if I'd been given the copy from God.  

I know that I'm not the only person that's been ruled by fear.  Ruled by fear of loneliness, acceptance, fear of rejection, abandonment, etc...  It affects everything that we do.  It affects what we wear, what we drive, how we wear our hair, what houses we buy, every last thing we do.  It imprisons us.   Except the walls are self made.  We are the jailer and we hold the keys.  

I am so enormously grateful to learn a heart language.  To have been given this piece of work.  I believe that my life has the potential to be lived, and not struggled through.  I can have total awareness, and quiet my mind.  I will have my heart energy - feel the feelings as they come, and not build a fortress around my heart to protect it.  I will evolve.  I will be a different person, and stop trying to be who I once was.  As an elderly gentleman once told me a few months ago - "you've yet to reach your potential," I believe he was right.  I claim it - I acknowledge it.  I will unblock my heart.        

Living life ~ Open Perspective.

Fear is more than just an emotion.  As I have been observing in life, it blocks our thought life - and perception.  It can, and does change everything once we become aware of it.  At it's inception, it alters our lives.  From how we view and interact with people, to how we perceive life.  It feeds upon itself, and it protects itself.  We lose a lot of valuable energy, because of fear.  

I'm discovering that I have much more trepidation in life that I'd once thought.  I've become enlighten by a book that I'm now reading - and I'm trying to live with my heart open.  To experience life from the entire process without getting sucked into the fear vacuum.  

It's very odd, this "fight or flight" response that we all have, that we don't actually need any longer - but our bodies still regularly use it.  It becomes habitual.  It's as if our systems thinks we're animals, that need to flee.  So we freak out on potholes, broken nails, or people that drive too slow.  We are a sad lot.  We protect ourselves from things we aren't even aware of.  Or at least that is what I've found upon enlightenment of it.  It is this inner core, that stays hammered down, at all times.  It's the 'safety-valve' of life.  I know it alters the way I experience life.  It protects me, but it also keeps me from experiencing joy as well.  

My quest is to find out how to open back up.  Now that I've discovered that I'm a closed system - how does one begin to unharness this safety device?  

I want to experience life the way it is supposed to be experienced.  Not from a fear state.  It seems total eradication of it isn't possible, so it is going to have to be a process.  It is the heart center, the seat of awareness.  It seems that things make me loose focus. It's like there's a big picture, but because of fear, the forest becomes the little tree.  All I've been seeing as of late, are little trees - and I'm not proud of this.  I ponder too, what it is I really think the enemy is?  What it is that is going to harm me?  Are they childhood demons, or modern day dilemmas?  Yet and still, none of which can really harm me to the extent that I have to wear the fear harness - but yet intellect does not illuminate nor eliminate.  It's not a brain matter...  It is at the seat of consciousness. It is the spirit of the psyche.  Do I ever wish good old Freud was around, or Jung, and pick their brains.  However, this isn't a brain deal.  It's a heart thing.  

2 Corinthians 5:7 We walk by faith, not by sight.  
I think this is the hardest part.  Faith.  I have it, but obviously, I need more.  Heart surgery.  I suppose this is what I'll be doing - on some level.  I'm on this path to living life more open - open to the universe.  Open to people, and open to experience.  I want the energy.  I want to live life like it is to be lived.  I want to give of myself to the things that serve me, so I can be of service.  I desire to experience it to the fullest - without being a 'closed system.' I want to experience the whole movie and not just the popcorn - and I know it is going to take hard work.  To breathe, and allow that self-serving fear to be released.  To have experiences where I don't feel like the world is going to end if I cannot control the outcome of events. The fact of the matter is we cannot control anything.  This is life, and it is full of change.  Somewhere, somehow, someone gave us the idea we could - and it has so messed up our psyche that we life in fear that things have to stay the same.  Our earth is rotating for goodness sake, how can we control anything, it's amazing that gravity works.  How we get the insane idea that we're in control, I'll never know.  Our bodies recycle themselves every 24 hours.  The only thing that stays the same, IS change.  

I look to my creator.  All of my hope is in Him.  It always is.  AS much as I've been through in my life, He is the only solution.  His word, and prayer are the tools of my life.  I don't do religion - I do relationship.  I've had many miracles in my life.  It is in many ways a miracle that I'm still alive with the things that I've been through.  Of course there would be scoffers, there always are, but they did not have my experience.  

I'm going to keep working on this heart journey.  I'm going to learn how to breathe.  I know that with most life quests, the universe will get behind me.  I think I'm going to find beauty in my life again.  I'm going to learn how to not feel fear.  I'm going to learn how to have experiences and not let the 'fight or flight' response be a knee-jerk reaction to every little bump in the road. I might just learn how to feel like a kid again.  I'm going to learn how to live open to experience all that life has to offer me, without having to feel like I've got to control it before it hurts me.  I'm going to somehow realize that it can't hurt me, unless I let it.  I know know there is a difference.  Enlightenment is half the battle.  I want the heart energy.  I deserve it and so do you.   

Fighting Battles, Living Life

Life,  It seems at times, is a series of battles.  I suppose it is a matter of perception - one could call it challenges, but either way, the climb is uphill.  An enlightened soul tries to do these things with an open heart.  Energy only flows through an open heart.  Once we loose focus, and our thinking becomes static - our wealth of energy is cut off.  Our thoughts race, and our whole lives seem to stop.  We have a block in the flow of our lives.  We no longer see beauty - our consciousness is no longer in tune with nature, moon light, and flowers.  It struggles for a solution and thus we become the problem.  It chains, dare I say, even our breath.  

My dispute with this is, I want to go on living despite my provocation.  If an individual is aware of the closing of the heart - that which shuts itself off during difficulties- then it can reopen.  I am not the sum total of the bumps in the road...  I want to keep seeing the trees in the forest.  

I have a few things going on.  All of which require legal counsel.  I am a tranquil human.  I love peace. For some odd reason - people in my life love to try and disquiet my spirit.  Unless I am merely processing it wrongly.  This could be too.  At any rate - I have things that can cause disharmony, and I am a creature of peace.  My quandary is: How do I remain open to life when life seems to throw me curve balls?  

I want to experience all that I can.  We only have one shot at this life deal.  I've told many, "this isn't a dressed rehearsal."  Energy flows in and through us.  The more open our systems, the more alive we feel.  Just like falling in love.  Remember how it felt?  You felt alive and invigorated - you could almost feel your blood pumping.  Everything felt new, bright and full of wonder.  This is living life the way I believe we can live.  We can live life, and be in love with life itself.  It is all a matter of perception, energy flow - and the attention we give out thoughts.  It is being an open system verses a closed one.  Our bodies are a system, why not challenge yourself to be free from the things that bind you, mainly your thought life?  It mostly stems from our fear of what "might" happen if we remain open to experience the world.  

What if we had a center that could not be hurt?  What if we decided, here and now that no one, or nothing was ever going to hurt us again.  That our cores were 'hurt-proof'.  That we had a special place inside of ourselves that nothing could penetrate?  Such a special place we only we can dwell.  Energy can flow in and out - but others have no access to hurt or harm.  It is only for us to access.  Our feeling center, where we experience life but that it is protected automatically.  Thoughts do not affect it - it just is.  It has it's on protective mechanisms.  The place where God dwells.  That ever so special place where we call all find center - and know we are always safe.  No matter what, nothing but positivity and goodness can penetrate it.  

Don't you think we'd be better humans?  We'd have more energy- we'd be kinder?  There would be less strife in the world at large.  More compassion.  We could direct our own thoughts.  We would do for our neighbor as we would do for ourselves.  We would love God with our whole hearts.  We would live like there is no tomorrow - and have no regrets.  We'd eat our favorite foods, call our most beloved people and tell them what they mean to us.  We would be able to live without fear.  We would only feel - love.  

This is what I think God had originally designed.  I believe this was the Garden of Eden.  The eating of the apple of knowledge of Good and Evil - thus made them aware.  Thus, began the burden.  

I believe it possible to rise above our truths - to a higher plane.  A place inside ourselves where life is precious.  Where our experiences mean what there supposed to mean - and we don't just 'struggle' through.  Where we can shut the computer (brain) down and experience life via the heart.  It takes work, and it takes great courage.  One must nearly be ferocious.  However, I believe it's worth every ounce of energy.  Every flow of energy - every opening of the heart.  To live life, present.  To view it as more than a series of battles.  To observe it as a wild movie that you can't wait to see what happens next.  

There is beauty in life, everywhere.  In the star sprinkled sky - the wispy clouds, the purplish oranges of the sunset.  The trees that reach far below ground and reach for the stars.  We are a blessed people.  If only we choose to see.  If we choose to see with our hearts and our eyes.  Even in our battles in life, we can find truth and beauty.  We are alive and breathing - fight for what is yours - but do it in kindness.  Do it with a sense of wonder and adventure.  Believe that anything is possible - and it will be.