Tag: faith

Living by the Light – When I Struggle to Connect

Seeing the colours in the light gives to me clues as to why I may feel a certain way in my body or emotions, or why I am thinking certain thoughts. I don’t mean that I am just dependent on my connection with the environment. Far from it – I am always asking God what things mean and how to interpret the messages I get through my relationship with the light.

Today, for instance, I notice a lack of yellow, and this always causes me to feel less emotionally connected than usual. When I first realised this, I was quite devastated, thinking “How am I going to live if I don’t feel really emotionally connected all the time. Isn’t this what everyone is striving for?” But I have had to let go of that way of thinking. God has shown me that connection runs deeper than heart energy or hearts or being grounded or breath or stillness or emotion.

Connection is through the soul. It just is!

Living by the Light – An Extra Anchor for my Soul!

Hi, I was lying in bed last night struggling to sleep. This is not a mild sort of struggle. It is a real ‘I can’t sleep!’ It has been going on for a long time and I would say that it is because I don’t feel grounded. So sometimes I talk to God.

Last night I said ” God, Why do I have this problem?” and God replied “Because you are not fully in your power” I asked “What stops me?” and God said “You.” I said “How?” God said “Well, you have this experience of me. Why don’t you write about it?”

So here I am willing to write. I find it hard to write about my relationship with God. It is like someone asking me to write about my husband. I mean there is so much I could say . . . where would I start?!

So here is an attempt to explain how I go about things in my day to day life. When I wake up in the morning, I don’t quite say “Hello, God” but I immediately wonder what my day is going to be about. I check into my feelings, my thoughts and how my body feels. This always gives me some clues. Well, this is all I used to do . . but these days it is a little more complicated. 3 years ago I realised I had an unusual experience of being very sensitive to the light. As the light changes, so do my feelings, thoughts and how I feel in my body.

For instance today, on January 9th, I am seeing a little less red in the light that I think most others would see and a little more violet that most others would see. The lack of red causes me to feel ungrounded and the violet light causes to me to feel full of ideas and inspiration. Understanding more of why I feel the way I do enriches my experience of God. I think “Wow . . God is speaking to me through my relationship with the light. This is amazing!”

I would say that living by the light is like having an extra anchor for my soul. It takes me deeper and helps me feel more connected to myself, my environment and of course ultimately . . . God.

A Message From God’s Heart!

A Message from God’s Heart

Q  What is it you want to show me?

A  I want to show you about the great wonder of having a personal relationship with me.

Q  And how do we do that?

A  Simply by knowing that I’m here, ready and willing to commune with you.

Q  And what do we do?

A  Talk to me.  Share your troubles and your joys, your doubts and fears, your hopes,dreams, ambitions, ask me anything you want to know.

Q  And will you answer?

A  Of course I will answer, in any way you believe that I can answer – through your dreams, through things people say, books, writings, nature, a voice in your head, synchronicity in your life, opportunities that open up, doors that open and close and more . . .

Q  And could we just say that this is the universe speaking, or light or love?

A  You could, but isn’t that an impersonal way of looking at relationship with me, the great Mystery, the Divine?  If you find your breakfast on the table in the morning aren’t you delighted that someone laid that out for you?  Or do you say “Good, the universe provided again!” Doesn’t it give you a warmer feeling to know that a person with feelings lovingly laid that breakfast for you?

Q  So you want us to depend on you like a child depends on their parent?

A  Yes.  I didn’t create you for self-sufficiency but for relationship.  I didn’t put all the answers in books, or in angel cards, or what you call your Higher Self or even in the Bible.  They are hidden in me the great Mystery and because you and I are one, I will reveal them to you as and when I know the time is right.  Our relationship is one of co-operation – a dance if you like, a banter, a dialogue – and between us we will unfold the greatness that I have put in your heart.

Call it Coincidence or Call it God – Your Choice!

I have a 12 year old who is scared of many things. He is scared of the electrical sockets in our house, the gas fire, the fact that he didn’t have chicken pox, a tiny speck of blood on his finger, an expression on someone’s face, the tone of someone’s voice . . . and the list goes on.

My son has light, colour, pattern and sound sensitivity. Life is naturally more scary to him than others. He is struggling to process all the colours, patterns and sounds in the world. And I totally understand his fear.

So . . . How Can I Help Him to be Less Fearful?

We have tried rationalising things, teaching him more about things like electricity and gas but it doesn’t seem to work. The only thing I can do for my son is to teach him about faith.

I find this pretty hard as my son has a very scientific mind and has learnt that he feels better when he is being very logical and systematic using the left side of his brain. And to live by faith we need to let go into the right side of our brain, where things aren’t rational and logical. They are more feeling based. This is where we make connections and see life as more of a whole, and start to wonder if there might be a bigger plan, and whether we might be part of it.

My son already lives by faith in a way. He often says that things don’t feel right, whether that is food, place, a person or an activity. And he is very strong on these things. However he is also open to change. He told me very strongly that he didn’t want to have anyone massage him the other day. Then when I walked out of a massage with a very nice lady in a very nice place, he said ‘Actually, I think I would like to have a massage!’

When I spoke to my son about faith this morning, I could see deep down that he found it comforting and he said “Well it was a bit of a coincidence that we found our white doves the way we did!” We had been to a pet shop and we spoke to the lady there of my son’s love of pigeons. We had decided to buy a smaller variety of doves called diamond doves, but when we next went to the pet-shop there were 3 beautiful white garden doves in one of the aviaries. They had lost their mother and the lady at the pet-shop had hand reared them. We all knew they were waiting for us!

Call it coincidence or call it synchronicity or go for all out comfort and call it God!

Church – It’s Time for a Change!

I have visited many churches and sometimes been inspired by the preaching, sometimes moved by the worship, sometimes touched by the sense of community but I have never quite felt at home.  I have always had a slight sense of isolation as I sit in my seat and the service unfolds.  I start wondering about the person next to me and wonder what their life is like and how they are touched and moved by God but when the service closes and we speak, it is only of surface things and the depths within both of us remain untouched. 

Occasionally someone has wanted to know what bought me to their church and when I have said God told me to come, they have given me a puzzled look and said “You mean you felt you should come.” And I repeat “No, God told me to come!” And I wonder but stop myself from saying “Doesn’t God speak to you too?”  On other occasions people have asked me directly “Are you a Christian?”  Oh how I hate labels! Of course the person wants to know whether I recognised myself as a sinner and asked God to help me with my life on a specific day at a specific time.  Well, as it happened I did but there was so much more. On that day I opened myself to the great mystery that me and God are indeed one.  Since that day we have walked and talked and laughed and cried together as I have walked the twisty turny journey of my life.  To reply to the question “Are you a Christian?” I would incur the same pain as if someone asked me “Are you a wife?” or “Are you a mother?”  How deeply impersonal and how wounding to my soul.

At a different sort of church people don’t seem bothered at all by such matters. In fact the minute the service closes it is as if we haven’t been in church at all. The conversation is only of how well you timed your roast dinner to be ready and who is making teas at the village fete.  The word ‘community’ is used a lot and there is much ‘doing’ and organising.  But, I think to myself – I am hungry deep down in my sprit – hungry for some touch of another soul, hungry for connection, a moment of realness.  I want someone to hear me, I want someone to see me but I feel invisible.  I want to hear and see another but there is no chink of vulnerability big enough for me to crawl through.  I shake the vicar’s hand, respond to the comment about how my son has grown and pass down the church steps, unnoticed and unknown.  I had so many thoughts, feelings, ideas, gifts and talents that I wanted to bring but there is no room for such things here.  I came to meet others on their amazing journey of faith but I wasn’t met.

Where can I go now?  Like many of us, the answer is ‘nowhere’.  On a Sunday morning I will stay home in the warmth and intimacy of my family.  I will go walking in the hills and fields near our home and watch the flocks of sparrows chattering in the hedges. I will make junk model dinosaurs with my son and listen to him giggling with glee when we can’t seem to make the head stick on the body. I will do anything to make life flow through my body, interest my mind, light up my emotions but I will not go to church where I feel no life and my soul simply goes to sleep. 

Christianity – A Message Written in My Heart

Many years ago I found myself on a course to become a Shiatsu Practitioner.  I’d been suffering with chronic fatigue and became fascinated with energy work as a way to understand my illness and healing.  I was a long way from full recovery but just about found the strength to drive the 70 miles from Somerset to Totnes in Devon every few weekends to attend my course.  Having arrived there I then had to find the strength to learn something new that challenged me physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually!

The biggest challenge for me was spiritual.  Within the philosophy of Shiatsu there didn’t seem to be any room for a relationship with a personal God.  I found myself floundering and lost within a belief system that saw God as more of a cosmic force and us as metaphysical beings.  The most significant thing to me was the absence of grace as I was told I had to work at my connectedness. It seemed that God couldn’t simply flow in me and through me to heal others.  I had to do energy exercises, breathing exercises and meditation to work up the chi.  I was insensed, enraged by this challenge to everything that I had found so dear, so beautiful and so meaningful.  Why couldn’t I just work with the connection I already had – permanent and unchanging?

I struggled to understand this new philosophy and to try to reconcile it with my own experience for 2 years.  I even created my own approach to Shiatsu that I called Shiaki based on a more Christian philosophy.  I found myself speaking up for Christianity – the wonder of relationship with God and the gift of grace – at every twist and turn of my course.  I was utterly amazed by my zeal and conviction as I had no idea that I would go out on a limb like this in a situation where no-one else shared my experience or beliefs.  It was as if God had lit a fire in my heart and nothing could quench it.

Today I still feel the Christian message.  If people try to discuss doctrine with me I feel my energy sink and become almost troubled.  I don’t have all the answers and some days I don’t know exactly what I believe but as I live my life I become more and more aware that the message of Christianity is written in my heart

Hearing God’s Voice

The best way to illustrate how I hear God’s voice is by giving some examples of the journeys that I go on with God – funny little journeys with big out-comes.

This particular journey took place a few years ago when I saw a picture in my head of a reservoir about 5 miles from where I live.  I had only visited it once and it hadn’t become a favourite place.  However on that day I felt this strange pull to visit it again so I dragged my husband, Richard and my 4 year old son out for a walk!  On arriving, what first occurred to me was that it was a good place for thinking.  Simply following the marked paths and feeling the calm of the water was quite therapeutic especially as I had some big thoughts going on in my head that I wanted to share with Richard.  As our walk continued we came to a sort of jetty that was like a narrow closed-in walk-way leading to a hide out by the water’s edge.  I don’t like tunnels or motion but felt drawn through this tunnel to the small square box-like hide sitting over the water.  It wasn’t really moving but as I looked out over the reservoir and saw the water rippling by, I really felt like I was on a boat.   Finding myself doing something strange but feeling I had to be there, I put my antennae up and talked to God. Our conversation went something like this:-

“OK, God what I am doing here?”

“Facing a fear.”

“What of . . . motion, boats . . ?“

“Movement.  You need to face your fear of movement.  You get so scared when you have a dream, something big and you see it unfolding before you, expanding, and then you don’t want to move. Jennie I want you to move, to run with your dream. I want you to face your fear of losing control.  I want you to let go.”

Hearing these words made me curious about my fear.  I tried looking out at the rippling water from different sides of the hide.  I looked at the information on the walls about the birds we might see and then my eye caught sight of something big moving in the water.  It was the biggest fish I’ve ever seen actually swimming and it was going surprisingly fast, heading straight for the hide.  Part of me became entranced by this fish but just in a corner of my mind was my fear, and the thought that watching it was making me feel slightly dizzy and I didn’t like it.  Quite suddenly I decided that enough was enough and I wanted to go now. I moved quickly through the tunnel and back onto what I thought was dry land!  I was happy again but I was changed.  A little bit of the fear had gone. 

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