dailydatewithgod

When I am faced with something to let go of in my life there is a sense of fear or impending doom. I suppose somehow that is natural unless of course it is something that I was only doing half-hearted.  The strongest calls to release something have come through my dating relationship with God.  It is not as though on our date the sky opens up and God says to me, “Colleen, let go”.  It is more of gentle sense that something whether a thing, a relationship, an idea, or a way of being has outlived its usefulness.  The fear comes when I am uncertain as to what will take its place.  Who will I be?  What will I do?  What does this mean about me?  God has shown me the call to release is a call to freedom.  Since I am only learning what true freedom is, it is an uncertain concept to me.  Living our lives attached to who we are on the outside in a limited universe means that if something is let go of there is a void.  What I find instead is an in between space where God meets me face to face.  Sometimes God holds me while I cry. Sometimes God laughs with me as I realize there is more room to connect with myself and what was I thinking holding on so tight.  Sometimes there is an unexpected understanding of God that lies beyond my own imagination.  Sometimes there is a quiet and a stillness and it feels like just me.  The space before the realization of freedom can be short or long but my daily dates have given me practice in sitting in the in between space while trusting in God’s wisdom of what is truly free for me.

There is a story in the Christian scriptures of Jesus on a boat with his disciples.  He is sleeping and they wade into a storm.  They scream for him to wake up and do something.  He gets up, moves his hand out towards the sea and instructs it to calm down.  Then he turns to them and asks why they were so alarmed and what happened to their faith.  God’s approach to the storms of our life is in complete contrast to our reaction.  God knows the difference between the calm of his love residing in our hearts and the storm we are experiencing outside of it. God is the knowing presence which reminding us that outside circumstances need not shake us at our core.  All we need to do is pause and connect with God to experience it in our hearts.  It comes when we rest in God’s certainty.  It is experienced when we take a breath and remind ourselves we are not our outside circumstances.  It is a hard lesson to learn.  It has taken me many years of dates to resonate more closely with the truth of my heart than my outside experiences. We are surrounded by messages all throughout the world, telling us we are all the elements outside of our hearts.  God isn’t the one who needs to wake up and do something about the situation.  We are called to wake up to the reality in our hearts.  Taking the time to cultivate the inner awareness of our connection to God enables us to approach life with a sense of calm.  This calm allows us to be unshaken by every little bump or storm. It doesn’t mean pretending everything is okay.  It is a boldness of dealing with the storms because they are the reality facing us, but detaching enough so we do not see them as a reflection of who we are.  It is easy to label ourselves by our experiences but God invites us at every breath to choose instead our inner calm reality of the love with which we were made.  It reminds me of an experience I had a while back.  I pictured Jesus holding me close and comforting me.  As I rested my head on his chest I saw the sacred heart with the thorns around it right there on his chest.  I asked him if it hurt and he smiled, looked me in the eye and said, “only when I believe its real”.  We all have our thorny experiences wanting to penetrate our inner core, but we can see them for the illusions they are and choose to believe in God’s truth of who we are anyway.

As a life long dancer, I marvel at the beauty of the lines we can create with our bodies, the subtle nuances of an extended limb used in movement that flows from one line to the next.  Training as a dancer starts with understanding where ones strength and power comes from.  It is important to know where your center is, how to keep focus, and allow your breath to fuel the energy needed in different areas of the body at different times.  The gathering of understandings is why you can see the music when a dancer moves even when you can’t hear it with your ears.  The poised body becomes the song.  The gift of grace shared by the breath allowing the fluidity of movement throughout the body is not just for dancers.  It is open to all of us at all times.  The kiss of inspiration begins when we attune ourselves to the rhythm of the in and out of our breath.  It moves us through poised lines as we walk, talk, stand, hug, or laugh. Our body becomes the message of God as we allow the movement to speak the unspoken language.  Our brains know this and the energy of our hearts are in resonance with it.  If we are poised and awake to how we can be used to convey the message of light and love in our every day moments, there is nothing God cannot do through us.

God has a subtle way of providing space that is unlike anything I seem to be capable of.  I suppose it shouldn’t surprise me given the way our bodies and nature move.  There is a flow.  In and out, up and down, back and forth.  Even how things move in circles creates a completeness and yet an opportunity to get to it even if you miss it the first time around.  The fact that we do not have to remind ourselves to breathe and our system functions gives me the sense we are constantly being guided and taken care of.  I am touched by the sacredness with which God sees creation.  Our life’s breath moves through us without our choice.  We are left to choose how we want to use our breaths.  We get to choose how it fuels our energy and takes us through this life. We get to choose whether we want it to help us speak with kindness or anger, exert ourselves physically or suspend it in a moment of awe.  God clearly wants creation to live and thrive.  We get to choose with each of those given breaths how we want to show up in the living and thriving.