dailydatewithgod

I never fully understood the point of having more questions than answers.  Then again, my answers are not always that which lead me to peace.  My head means well when it provides an answer, but often I am left with little room to breathe and be in that answer.  Growing up it seemed as though everyone around me had mastered some sort of handle on life that I missed.  Perhaps the book I got was missing pages.  I have come to realize that I was following a playbook that was given to me and instead of asking for directions on how to read it, I made up my own.  This is not a bad idea but lived in the extreme leads to a sense of futility and being a victim.  I seemed to keep getting it wrong and after a time I didn’t think I could ask questions.  I told myself they were stupid questions and I should just know.  But I forgot to ask myself the most fundamental question, “how would I possibly know something I have never experienced before?”  It isn’t even logical.  I didn’t realize that the people who gave me the play book for life simply passed down what was given to them and probably didn’t ask many questions either.  There is nothing like brushing up against the reality of darkness to wake you up to the need to switch things up.  This path of being awake led me to people and places that questioned all kinds of things.  One of the most resounding ideas I have learned following my current play book is to allow for all things to be questioned.  They may change my ideas about myself or life or stay the same, but it is about coming to my own sense of peace around whatever it is.  At the end of the day, it is me and God.  No one else is going to be able to play out my life.  Accepting the wonder and mystery that comes from being able to question all things, even whether it is the right time to question something, leads to life that is livable and breathable.  Sometimes the simplest question I can ask God is, “What do you think is possible here?”

There is this physical element of being in relationship with God where I can sense that I am surrounded by love. It is not a constant feeling but I have had it enough time to begin to recognize it.  At first it caught me by surprise because it sounds like it would be as though one was enclosed from the outside by this feeling. Instead it is a sense of warmth that resonates from my heart.  It is as though God wants me to know that my heart is always protected by the love in which it was created.  I am able to connect to it when I focus on my heart and breathe into it.  Again, it doesn’t happen every time, but when I feel as though I am surrounded outside of me by energy that feels unsafe or uncomfortable, I can draw my attention to my heart and visualize light.  Sometimes it helps to imagine the glowing light of a candle inside my heart. As I intentionally stay focused on the sense of warmth and protection from within grows.  I think we all have this capability.  It is something that I came across by accident in my date time with God.  As part of my search to expand my meditation toolkit, I found myself piecing together things I learned from various traditions and teachers.  It is not easy to maintain my focus there but if I am able to do so for just a moment, I am brought back to center.  It keeps me from defaulting to the belief that I am unsafe and need to be protected from the world.  When I feel that way, I want to close off my heart.  It is as though God is telling me to lean into the warmth of God’s presence in my heart and be surrounded by an impenetrable force.  As I walk through deeper levels of my recovery as an incest survivor, I connect with the wounded little girl inside of me who needs to know more than anything that there is and always has been a surrounding of love around our heart.  No matter what happened or can happen, it cannot be overcome by anything.  The presence of love is in me in such a deep way that one day it will radiate so much that it will surround me completely.

My genuine and overriding experience of God continues to grow and change the longer I am present in our relationship.  It never ceases to amaze me the possibilities that God comes up with to show the presence of love in my life.  It is as though God’s goal is to make connection over and over again in as many areas of my life as I will allow.  I have come to see that it is only my perception that God wants nothing to do with a certain area of my life that prevents God from entering in.  I am surprised daily by the clever forms of love show up like annoying people or circumstances.  I think of it like the first time I saw a gift wrapped in comic strips from the newspaper.  It blew my mind that someone had not used the store-bought gift wrap paper.  How ingenuous and much more entertaining than some pretty paper with a bow.  I see now that God’s entrances into my life are often wrapped up in unusual packages that sometimes do not look like gifts at all.  Even if nothing more than me reaching for God’s hand to find the presence love in a situation is what happens that is enough.  Sometimes it is just a chance for me to remember God is still here in this moment which seems devoid of God.

The energy we need to show up for our lives sometimes seems daunting.  In my professional work I have the opportunity to work with large groups of people all at once.  Given that I spend hours in a room with many people all in different head spaces, focusing it can feel a bit chaotic.  It is having a particular purpose that we are able to effectively harness our collective energy.  As the facilitator of this experience I have had to learn how to become efficient at guiding people’s focus and attention.  As I grow in my relationship with God I see that I can be a gift to myself and others in any area of my life when I am effectively cognizant of my own energy and its impact on others.  I used to think that meant adjusting who I am to please others and get their approval.  I tried that a myriad of ways from things I said to things I didn’t say, actions I took and actions I refrained from.  But it wasn’t until I learned the value of bringing my heart’s intention to see the presence of God in everyone I came across did I enable my energy to be used effectively.  It is the heart space where God and I spend our daily date time each morning which I intend to bring into all the spaces of the rest of my day.  It is a constant dance of on and off throughout the day and I feel most effective in the world when I know I have more on than off.  We are even able to measure the resonance of our hearts with machinery and see the scientific evidence of our impact on others.  If I spend my date time bringing my heart to my relationship with God first thing in my day,  I have a much greater chance to staying in effective alignment with my heart the rest of the day.  I am most grateful that God enjoys the dance and is showing me on my dates how to take joy in it as well.  There is no expectation of perfect effectiveness but a joy in the willingness and courage to give it my best shot whatever that means in the moment I am in.  It is the best we all can do.

If one was to excavate my life, what would they find?  What angle would one enter from to reach the core of who I am?  I know that God mines me from the heart.  On a mindful day I search and excavate my experience of other from their hearts.  It is easy to get blocked by the outer layer which seems to want to keep others out.  It is easy to look past the possibility of mining for gold in someone who seems to exude only steel.  It takes time to get to know someone and chip away at the exterior surface that wants to keep us from touching the inner sanctum of ourselves.  It starts by being willing to do it with ourselves.  For a long time I fell for the illusion of steel and ice that surrounded my heart and didn’t trust that beneath it breathed a warmth of spirit that sang of God’s presence. When I started on my daily dates with God I did so out of desperation to find some solace in my life.  Having moments of stillness in the morning seemed pointless at first.  Then it would get challenging.  The ideas in my mind or the aches in my body seemed to scream louder than anything my heart may or may not have been whispering.  But God invited me each morning to come sit again and again.  God never wavered because God is and always will be a stand for the presence of the spirit of love that resides beneath the exterior stories and ideas I placed on top of my heart.  God knows that mining takes time.  God always believes in the worth of the time and whatever path of excavation necessary to be reminded of love’s presence beating within me.  Now on our dates I find myself a little bit more curious of a new mining route that pops up to be explored.  God takes my hand, and let’s me know we have just discovered another avenue to mine for the expansion of love.

In my heart of hearts there lies a space of infinite love.  It is an ocean of never-ending waves of grace that rush in and out along the sands of my breath.  It flows in and through me unabated by the outer experiences of my body and mind.  It is a place of stillness and completion that never wonders whether I will make it to the next moment.  The energy that drives it is God alone.  This beautiful experience is happening over and over again with each new breath and I have no clear concept of the majesty of life that is present most of the time.  Then once in a while when I pause, catch my breath and connect with my heart I am drawn into this experience.  God gives me a nudge to look within and I decide to give it a try.  In our daily dates God invites me to connect with this reality before my mind is bombarded by many ideas and experiences to the contrary.  God is always ready with a hand to guide it to my heart when I get off course.  God never withholds his warmth of hand because it has been a while since I reached out.  God never questions where I have been.  God simply smiles and says, “Glad you are here.  I hope you stay, “ and guides my hand once again to my heart as I take a deep breath.