My Spiritual Journey

In Sue Monk Kidd's book "Firstlight" She quotes that "Creating is an act of self-knowing. Through our own stories of our life we see the Mystery of ourselves more clearly. When you share your inner stories you allow others to enter your life and partake of your deepest truth."


I have been reading through my journals that cover a period of about 39 years.  I wrote because for me it was a way to try and understand what I was going through at that particular time.  As I wrote I would look back once in while and be able to make some since of it all.  But as I look back over these many journals I see the same similarities that kept coming back.  Most of my entries had to do with my walk with God and how it related to what ever situation I was going through at the time.  It has made me think about another area of our life where stages of growth are involved only this has strictly to do with the stages of our spiritual growth. 

Often I wonder anymore how did I get from where I was at to where I am now in my beliefs.  Being able to look back on where I began in this adventure it seems that I have gravitated back to the simplicity of my relationship with God as a child.  It had nothing to do with religion and everything to do with relationship.  Everything that I have experienced through the Bible in church through friends and the many books I have read have helped to bring me to the place I find myself now.
  In my journals I wrote this poem one day as I was trying to put into words what I was feeling. 

 The innocence of belief without any question

 is safe and secure all follow in the same direction.

How easy it is to walk one behind the other

without a question as to where you are going. 

Walking in faith one behind the other

 good little soldiers following only direction.

One by one,

one after the other

 off the cliff they fall on one another.

What is the reward,

 a golden crown,

a set in Heaven upon the ground.

Forever and eternity

I will sit and gaze upone Thee.

But for me there is a rebel inside

 that sits not still

and wants to cry,

where are we going

does anyone know

why do I feel so empty inside?

I am not like you nor are you like me.

Don't we have a right to express

and be free.

The chosen road I now partake

is much harder let there be no mistake.

To work at keeping God along my side,

without anyone to share the ride.

I see God in so many more places

He exist in all kinds of faces

His presence is in all I see

Heaven on earth that's the way it should be.

Some of the gifts of God and the world you create with them

I want to write about my spiritual walk in a way that does not come across as being preachy or over bearing to the point that my readers get turned off.  I don't like when people preach at me with empty words and so I hope that in my writing I can show my readers a God that comes down to their level.  Throughout my journey I have always thought about how I could explain to my children and friends what it was that I had just discovered in a way that would meet them right where there were at.  Yet I have always been respectful and understanding that we are all in different places in our walk with God.  So I can't expect everyone to understand where I am coming from completely I can only hope that something I have to say will help you along your own way.

There is so much I want to say that I am finding myself overwhelmed with were to start.  So I have decided to get out of my own way and let God lead me with one thing at a time.

I had a very difficult life from the time I was born until I met Tom at the age of 17.  As a child I had a relationship with God that had nothing to do with religion.  He was all I had and as I had no one else to trust in I held onto the hope that he would get me through those years.  I didn't exactly pray to him in the form of pray that I learned in church.  I held conversations with him.  There was only one real prayer I had and that was that he would let me have a better life in the second chapter of my life which I believed to be when I grew-up.  I never feared God he was my friend.  I didn't hold back either from him and at times I was angry because I couldn't understand why he would bring a child into such misery. I actually felt as if I was a reject from the great factory of God as I called it.  I had this vision that I was  created in the "Great Factory of God" as I came to the end of the production line about to go into inspection and receive my final blessing that God was called out on an emergence and I missed his blessing.  I was a child and I couldn't understand at this time just how special and unique I was in his eyes.  That understanding came through many years of turmoil as I worked through the baggage I carried with me into that second life I referred to.

 I was blessed to met someone in my life who could see through the disbelief that I had built up and no matter how much I tried to convince him of how unlovable I was he saw my inner beauty.  I don't know what my life would have turned out like if he hadn't come into it.  But as corny as it sounds I believe Tom was one of the most important answers to my prayer for a better life.

My Dad was always of the belief that you create your own reality in life.  He had a lot of wisdom when he wasn't drinking and he knew for himself that he had his own difficulties to over come but every time he took a drink he knew that it was of his own free will that he did it.  There was no devil making him do it he could drink or not drink and as difficult as it is for an alcoholic to choose not to drink the choice is always there.   So I learned a very important lesson about life that we are born with this wonderful gift from God called freedom.  With this gift we can choose the kind of life we want.  I could go on for the rest of my life being a victim of my past or I could decide to live the better life God had hoped I would choose.  I realized at sometime within the first 10 years of my marriage that God had answered that desperate prayer I had as a kid.  My life was good but now I had to learn how to live within that goodness and let go of the past.  A task easier said then done but not impossible.  And so my journey began with this knowledge that not only had I created the life I was in at this point but that I could go on to continue to make it a positive adventure with the right attitude, thinking and always with God at my side to guide me.

Now I guess this sounds all kind of warm and fuzzy and she lived happily ever after.  I have been happy but not without many years of therapy, medication and God.  I have just worked really hard at trying to understand 'what it's all about'.  Not only did God give us the gift of freedom but he also gave us a brain to think with and it is what we put into that brain that goes into the world that we create for ourselves.

In this wonderful book I found after my Dad passed away called, "In Tune with the Infinite" by Ralph Waldo Trine, the author begins by explaining that our thoughts are what create the world we live in and affects all within that world. Are you an optimist or a pessimist? They both believe that they are right. Yet, they are different as day and night. Each is right from his own particular point of view, and this point of view is the determining factor in the life we create for ourselves.
An optimist is somebody positive: somebody who tends to feel hopeful and positive about future outcomes. The optimist has the ability to see things in their entirety and in their right relations. Their understanding is illumined by wisdom.

The pessimist is a very negative person: somebody who always expects the worst to happen. The pessimist looks from a limited and one-sided point of view. They tend to look at things as if they can only see through a pinhole, unable to see all the other possibilities around them, their understanding is darkened by ignorance.

Each is building their world from within, and the result of the building is determined by the point of view of each.

The optimist has so much more to work with, they are hopeful they have wisdom and insight to name a few that give them the opportunity to create there own heaven on earth and by doing so they add their piece of heaven to the world. The word heaven means harmony. The pessimist on the other hand is limited and closes all the doors to possibilities creating their own hell and this too touches and affects the rest of the world. The word hell meaning to build a wall around, to separate, and shut off from.

You and I have the predominating characteristics of an optimist or the predominating characteristics of a pessimist. We then are making, hour by hour, our own heaven or our own hell; and in the degree that we are making the one or the other for ourselves are we helping make it for all the world beside.  I would have to admit that I have been a little of both through out my life.  It is in the knowledge of this truth that I am able to change for the better when I am feeling at my worst.  It's something to ponder on a daily bases.  We should have a check in time for ourselves throughout the day, asking ourselves am I being an optimist or a pessimist today.

The Stages of Life through the eyes of a Grandparent

Recently we attended our two oldest Grandson's Graduations.  You don't think about the fact that you will someday be attending graduations all over again after your last child graduates.  You are just glad it's over and you got them all through it successfully.  We have 9 Grandchildren with two down and 7 more to go.  Ugh! That was our first reaction.  Do we really have to attend their graduation Tom asked.  Yes I said it's part of being a Grandparent and it's important to them that we are there.  So we went reluctantly doing our duty.  I cried watching them march in and again when they were handed their diplomas and Tom sat next me with a very proud look on his face.

The speeches giving by the students and teachers talked about this special day not only being about the past12 years of learning coming to end but also about the understanding that learning never ends and the real learning is about to begin as they venture out into the world to do what ever they are lead to.

Tyler is our first Grandchild he came into our life when he was 3 years old.  Joe came into our life when he was 8.  They both had a lot to deal with for such little guys and I always admire their strength and perseverance as they struggled with their own baggage.  They have both always been close to my heart as if kindred spirits in the same struggle as a child growing up with more to deal with then any kid should have to.  Tyler just swore in to become a Marine leaving for boot camp in April and Joe plans to work in the field of sheet metal which he trained for in Vo-Tech for the past two years.  Both are eager to move on into adulthood.

I remember when I was this age thinking, so I'm an adult now, but not really feeling any different.  Wondering am I really ready for this.  For me it was a little to late to wonder as I got married and had a baby  at the age of 18.  How fast you go from being a kid to adulthood when you find your self suddlenly responsiable for a tiny baby.   

Tom and I also attended one of our Granddaughters (Keria's) graduation for nursary school.  It was quit surreal watching the two older boys come to the end of what Keri is only beginning.

I feel like I am experince life from a totally different  perspective as a Grandparent.  As a parent I was so busy being Mom taking care of my kids needs and trying really hard to do the right thing that I missed many of the opportunitys I am now able to appricate through my Grandchildren.  Maybe that is normal. As I watch my own kids being parents now themselves they are just as busy trying to do all the right things yet it seems that their world is even more hectic then ours was.  I guess that is why Grandchildren are such a gift.  We can enjoy them totally and give them back when we get too tired. 

My youngest Grandchild Austin makes me think about another aspect of life, the beginning.  How innocent they are as they come into this world.  The smell of them and softness of their new little body.  How dependent they are on there parents to meet there every need.  The pure joy of their parents appearance or for that matter our apperance as well is enough to overwhelm my heart. 

Then they begin in the years as Arianna at 2, and Adian and Garrett at 4 when the personalitys begin to develop.  They are so much fun to watch and at times the center of attention for all of us.  But this is the time also when some of the ugliness of the world begins to enter them and they are also influnced by the things they see, hear and live with on a daily bases.  How I wished I could keep them in a protected bubble that none of the ugliness of world could touch them, but of course that is unrealistic.  It is part of being a human and a very big part of our development. 

Morgan is 9 years old, and soon, as she points out about to enter the double digit age of 10.  She is already feeling the hormones beginning to change her as she struggles with the idea of being a little girl at the door step of pre-teens.  She fills at times like she doesn't know where she belongs in this stage of her life.  I can still remember what this stage felt like for me only I was at least 11 at the time.  I wanted to play with my doll one minute and then found myself hiding her in the lining closet the next.

Then finally there is Mikey who is at the beginning years of High School.  Ready to do his own thing before he is ready like all teenager.  Morgan is at the beginning stages of believing that her parents just don't understand and Mikey is at the point where he doesn't care if they understand because he already has all the answers.    

I remember when I was in High School and sometimes I would tell my Dad that I wish I could just curl up in a ball and disappear into myself like a Rollie-Pollie bug.  He would say, ah Connie, you are just going through a new stage in you life.  I felt like the stages should be coming to an end at this point in my life and if this was what it felt like then I didn' want to go through anymore stages.  He said that your whole life is full of different stages.  Boy, can I look back and see that to be true.  But now I also understand that life would be pretty boring if all our learning stopped at the end of High School or College.  Now I look with excitment as to what I'll learn next and I hope I live long enough to do all the things I want to.