Was Blind But Now I See

It is early and the birds are singing in the new day. My life has been filled with good moments as of late. Yesterday I swam in the pond twice, and had two beautiful experiences of prayer and praise as I went to church and a praise night. It is nice to be once again reminded of how loved I am and that God belongs to me. “I am yours and You are mine.” These words speak to me deeply. I think of nurturing a child to become their own person. This involves them finding their own unique relationship with God. If I as a child am encouraged to kindle a relationship with the Lord, I might discover that I have my own thoughts, my own individuality and my own personal relationship with the Spirit that is completely my own and no one else’s. The underlying message is that I am loved. Now, as an adult, I am needing to learn this for myself all over again. I think of myself as a young child, wanting to nurture a private place that I can call my very own. This is what Jesus is speaking to me in this moment.

There can be pain as an adult as we realize our codependent relationships. We may have a need for acceptance and approval from someone. Be it our mothers or our partners, we may be reaching for filling a hole or a void we feel around acceptance and love. I am filling this hole by realizing that I am loved by God, by Jesus. Once I have this inner strength and personal relationship to the Lord, I am free of seeking approval from other places. I can heal those relationships where I have sought this approval most of my life. It turns out that I must seek love only from God and He freely gives it to me. Personally I find more meaning to this than Buddhist theology or even Hindu theology. I have benefitted very much from learning about struggle, mindfulness, attachment and the self, but seeing God as a person that loves me unconditionally and has the ability to wipe all sin from my life is more personal to me. I also find great help studying the Power of Now, a book by Eckhart Tolle that talks of finding the moment in which we can find pure bliss. There are skills that aide me on my journey. But where would I be without Jesus?

Once again I find myself returning to church and the Bible. I find the Lord is pleased that I have quit drinking and this is only motivating me to further my experience not drinking and pray harder about how I can improve my life. But it is not just about living life righteously. It is about loving people and knowing a deep deep love within me, that I am wholly accepted and approved of by a God that loves me completely unconditionally. Here, I speak my truth, what I have found to change my life. In church we were encouraged to write out a short story of how Christ has changed us. Mine is simply this. That before I knew Christ I strove. I strove deeply to improve and heal from my mental illness. I did all I could do, but my relationship with the Lord, knowing on a deep level how loved I am, resulted in a new level of healing. It allowed me to go deeper still, reach into the depths of my soul to find peace. I had needed to find this peace in my life and now I have it. I also have meaning and purpose like I have never known.

This love will serve me in many ways. Another very human thing I suffer from is fear of success. This is dissolved in the loving eyes of Jesus. I no longer feel the need to sabotage my life because there is no deep well of darkness and addiction. I am healed. I may continue to heal, to learn and improve, but what would life be without learning? I just know that I am not afraid to shine anymore. God wants me to, I am His child and there is no reason to give into the darkness that can overtake me so deftly, so obscurely and often secretly. I have clarity and focus and I plan to get all I can out of pushing forward with success, inner success, and serving the Lord.

So here is to peace, purpose, unconditional love, patience, acceptance, approval, and deep deep healing, all things I have found in the loving embrace of Jesus. May I continue to find these things, and may I learn to extend this love to others and speak of this love so people may know how much it has changed me. St. Francis believed in speaking the word of God through actions and not words. I know that being a writer makes me fall heavily on the use of words, and I am thankful for finding purpose in writing and having this skill. But I hope to live by example. I hope that other’s may learn to allow in a personal relationship of love and Christ from seeing that I have so much love now that it pours out of me to others and the world.