dailydatewithgod

God is now.  God is this moment.  God is reality.  If ever there was anything we can count on to always be present it is God.  Our minds wander into the future or hang out in the past, but our spirit is always present in the moment.  When I am experiencing anxiety it is often because my mind is somewhere in the future.  When I am experiencing remorse it is often because my mind is somewhere in the past.  At all of those times, God is with me in the present.  My body is always in the present as it cannot be physically anywhere else than it already is. I have begun to use my body as a tool to presence me in the moment.  Now when my head starts going to someplace other than where I can bring myself back by paying attention to my breath.  Most mindful practices start with a focus on the breath because it brings us to the present moment.  You cannot be breathing in the air of the future and the breath of the past has already been and gone.  Sometimes I experience sensations in my body and because of a previous experience my mind will make it mean that I am somewhere that I am not.  My body isn’t doing anything other than naturally responding, but my thinking goes somewhere other than the immediate moment. As an incest survivor, I spent a large portion of my life blaming my body for doing what a body does.  My healing work is about separating the story of the original circumstance of bodily sensations from the immediate ones that I experience today.  I cannot do this alone. I need the power of the Present One, the Immediate One, and the Real One.  By having the courage to stay in the immediacy of the moment that I really am present in, I can with God’s help begin to create a new story around some familiar sensations.  My prayer for us today is that we notice when we are taken out of the immediate moment and ask God for the courage to return to the now.  Make it a great one!   Peace, Colleen

God is a Bold God. God stands clear and defined as God.  The firmness and boldness that God is resides within us as well.  We can claim with equal intrepidity who we are in our hearts.  The moment we choose to do so we experience a freedom and a sense of peace.  It is not just a claiming with words but with our being.  Our life is made up of who we are being.  Our life is a series of actions. When we live our lives doing what we are supposed to do or what we think other people expect then we are making those other people our gods.  When we allow ourselves to stand tall in the definition of our hearts instead of our minds it may cause some uncertainty.  The fear stories begin and we wonder if we can do it. God stands with us in those moments so that we can choose to latch on to the fear stories or be our intrepid selves. I need this in engaging in conversations that are uncomfortable, taking action on things I want to procrastinate, or just doing stuff I don’t feel like doing.  It is in the small moments of choosing courage that we build a life of intrepidity.  God gives us the courage because it is who God is and God is within us.  Courage means from the heart.  Within our hearts is the intrepid nature of our being that can be expressed outwardly in action when we own who we truly are.  My prayer for us today is that we be willing to stand with intrepidity and claim who we are in our hearts for ourselves and the world.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

God of All That Is has created a world that ebbs and flows.  We are a part of that ebb and flow.  It is present in us and around us. God calls us into times of quiet contemplation so that we can be one with the whole of creation.  Our role is not more important than that of a rose but though its expression is different.  We too are called to bring love into the world and to aid in its experience of beauty.  We typically do it through our words and gestures. Ultimately we do it through who we are being just like the rose.  When we own who we are and allows ourselves the process of growth, we are open to being given light from the Creator and taken care of by the Gardner.  In times of contemplation on our date, God invites me, just as I am, to be with Him.  God is asking me to spend time contemplating my connection to God.  God shares with me the beauty of just being .  There is nothing else to do and no other place to be.  My prayer for us today is that we be open to contemplating the world by being in it as ourselves.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

God of All Aliveness surrounds us and places within us all that we need.  We are called to be messengers of love.  We are invited to grow in the likeness and image of our God.  The Great Spirit lives with a contagious vivacity.  This is the path set before us if we are open to taking it.  It is hard to imagine in our mind’s eye that we could live and be an experience of such vitality that it would carry us through life.  We are limited by the thinking that this physical existence is all there is.  Anyone who has fallen in love can tell you that they know what it is like to be in another dimension where time and space know no bounds.  This encounter with Spirit is not limited to romantic love.  The invitation to vivacious living can be experienced through an every day walk with God.  I who never thought it was possible to live with any sense of true freedom have been shown otherwise in my relationship with God.  It is not present every moment but this mystical encounter and the recollection of it is enough to make life more than worth living. Those kinds of connections with God are part of what make the day-to-day that much more joyful because one knows in their soul the preciousness of each breath.  I can stand outside, look up in the sky, feel the wind on my skin and start to cry because I realize that I am alive.  It may sound all fluffy and cute but when your heart feels like it is breaking because the love that you are encountering is so much greater than you, the grounding of your breath is what keeps your feet on the ground.  How did this happen? All I know is that I showed up day after day for our date. The rest God will have to share with you on your journey. My prayer for us today is that we be willing to believe that the vivacity of life is ours if we show up to be present for it.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

God Almighty who commands the heavens and the earth is calling to you.  The call comes in many forms and shapes.  It comes from within you. It is a calling to dwell in God.  It is a calling to slow down and hear the message of love that God has imprinted on our hearts.  The invitation comes as a whisper. It is like the subtly of feeling the wind on your skin.  Unless you stop to pay attention to it, you will not feel it.  When God and I have our date time together God does not scream in my ear.  God waits for me to sit quietly and then speaks to my heart through words that I read, the sound of my breath or the simple beating of my heart.  A picture comes to mind, a sense of peace flows through me, and sometimes it seems as though nothing happens at all.  Some days I must be satisfied that I did my part and showed up.  If I go into our date with an expectation of a result then I am missing the point.  The point is to be with my creator.  The point is to dwell in the closeness of time and space with the One who knows me through and through and accepts all of me even when I don’t. It is the gift of a time during the day to just be.  Dwelling in the presence of God means being with myself exactly as I am in this moment and knowing it is okay, it is enough, and I am loved.  No wonder I couldnt’ wait for it to be over when I first started.  I no more wanted to sit still with myself then I wanted to be plagued with hiccups.  I’d spent my whole life running from myself and avoiding getting to know myself deep down because I feared I was as horrible and dark as I had felt in specific circumstances of my life.  It did not matter that those circumstances no longer existed, I had repeated the story of what I made them mean so many times in my head I believed they were who I am.  But the hope in my soul drew me to spend this time each day and eventually it got easier.  It is that same light of hope that God had built within me at my very conception and it was calling me to dwell nearer to my God. I am so glad I do for today.  My prayer for us today is that we be willing to latch on to the hope in our soul calling us to dwelling with God and ourselves. Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

The Ultimate Power of the universe created you.  This same great power resides within you.  Being creators ourselves we know full well the experience of leaving an imprint of ourselves in what we create.  If the Greatest Power of Creation designed you then part of it is still with you. When we get stuck in the illusion that we are on our own and that we have to figure it out we find ourselves losing touch with the audacity to live as God created us.  We can reclaim this spirit and gumption when we remember that we are not disconnected from it as our ego mind tries to tell us that we are. I get caught up in thinking I have to figure it all out.  I start telling myself that I should know how to do things that I don’t know how to do or it is best to handle it on my own and not ask for help.  I tell myself that I don’t want to appear needy or over stay my welcome.  I act as though I am a burden on the universe and need to give reason for my existence.  God simply laughs at these notions.  The fact that I am breathing is proof enough that I am meant to be here.  Being in connection and relationship with others is part of what living is about and there are billions of other people on the planet so clearly going it alone isn’t the best option.  My prayer for us today is that we step back from our separatist thinking and remember who created us and live with audacity.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

God of all illumination stands ready within our hearts to share with us the profound beauty of the lightness of love to the fullest extent.  When we open ourselves up to the possibility that what lies within in us is a lucid experience of love, not the darkness we fear we step into alignment with God. One of my all time favorite songs (a go to song to listen to when I want to feel grounded) is Silent Lucidity by Queensryche.  In it I hear the voice of God: “If you open your mind for me, you won’t rely on open eyes to see.  The walls you built within come tumbling down, a new world will begin . . . I will be watching over you. I am gonna help you see it through. I will protect you in the night. I am smiling next to you, in Silent Lucidity.”  When I began this path of recovery in which I let go of my drug of choice (food, body hatred), I had no idea that I was running from all of the seeming darkness that I believed was inside of me.  I had for so long run off of the stories in my head that I created to explain the madness I was experiencing at home growing up feeling unsafe and unprotected from my own parents.  I needed to explain the confusion at being loved and betrayed all at the same time. Like most children I took it on as my fault.  I recognize now that my parents were just doing what they knew to do.  It took me many years to come to a place of forgiveness.  I am grateful for the grace of that forgiveness that allows me to love them and most of all be at peace with my own heart because it doesn’t reek of anger and fear. We all have our own individual experiences that at some point invite us to seek something beyond what our human eyes can see.  Trusting in this lucidity is what allows me to not rely on what just my human eyes see but God’s eyes which open me to a whole new world.  I know that God is smiling next to me, always.  My prayer for us today is that we be willing to believe that the lucidity of God is within us no matter how many stories we have to the contrary.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

God of Light is always with you.  God of clarity is always within you. When we long to find balance of heart in our lives, God is here to capture and captivate our minds and spirits through the gift of light.  When we are restored to sanity (soundness of mind) we experience a clarity about who we really are and what our purpose is. It is often not until we find ourselves in the darkness that we yearn for the light.  At least that is how it was with me.  I experienced many a dark time in my life.  Sometimes because of circumstances, sometimes because of thinking generated from trying to make sense of circumstances.  There are many paths to light (enlightenment) and we are all on a journey of love whether we recognize it or not.  The longer I walk this path of light and love hand in hand with the Great Creator who adores and marvels in me, the more I am encouraged to bring light to the places in my life that I have been dark for so long, I did not know that there was light.  Sometimes they are such a mixture of dark and light that I stopped paying attention to the dark parts until I was ready to bring them fully into the light.  These are the things that we refer to as having a love/hate relationship with. They are our passions which explains why suffering comes with them.  Dance is such an experience with me.  It is too long of a story to go into but recently I have experienced seeing my relationship with this self-expressive art form in a new light.  It has caused me to unearth some old patterns of mindset when dancing.  Maybe because it directly involves my body, but this experience has taken me to depths I had not previously imagined and it has not been easy.  I am encouraged by the knowledge that something this deep to let go of means more room for love in my heart.  This keeps me moving forward instead of succumbing to the idea that I just need to take a nap.  Our ardors become the vehicles to bring us more fully into the light o f love.  Instead of striving to figure out why there is a push and pull I can now recognize the gift of walking this path through my passion instead of wanting the “negative” side of it to go away.  Hmm, where else in my life do I apply that way of thinking?  My prayer for us today is that we be open to exploring all the “sides” of our passions to better enable us to see our path further into connection with The Light.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

The world was given a great blessing this morning when you took a breath and opened your eyes.  God knew what God was doing when we were created. We are here for the specific purpose of being generators and creators of love.  We all have a life breath within us that allows us to share this love in our own special fashion. The world needs what we have and it is up to us to step up and claim our birthright as messengers of love.  We can share this expression of God in a way that brings youth and vitality into our experience and the experience of others.  It is not about following a particular religion or being the most knowledgeable in theological matters.  It is about breathing in the young fresh gift of life that is offered to us through the spirit of our hearts with each new breath.  It is about having the verve of life in our being so that those around us are reminded of their youthful inheritance of love.  My prayer for us today is that we be willing to take a chance on believing that the youthfulness of spirit to be shared is present in our hearts at all times.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

God of All Beings and Lover of All Energy stands at the helm of the greatest level of elevation that exists.  Our hearts which are connected to this Great Spirit of the Universe long with great depths to be united in all ways, all times, and all spaces . We want to be in this space of elevation with our Creator.  Our hearts are restless and we go about our lives in this physical existence striving to connect on the deep level of which we know in our souls we are capable but cannot seem to achieve.  We have lost sight of the fact that it is not some place to get to like an elevated point on the planet, but a depth within the quiet of our hearts to still ourselves enough to hear.  When we are one with God we experience a liberation from all that we carry that is not of God.  When we allow ourselves to be carried by the love from which we were formed, we sense the freedom that is who we are.  In those moments when we feel safe and connected we get a glimpse of the possibilities that exist in God’s realm all the time.  I very easily can jump back into thinking that I am a victim of life and stuff just keeps happening to me. (i.e. -car problems, female problems, relationship problems, etc.) I need God to remind me as gently as he does that life is happening for me. The only question is, how will this allow me to grow in love? The power of being teachable elevates me to a space where I recognize that I cannot fail or destroy anything because I can never undo God.  My prayer for us today is that we be open to seeing the current challenging circumstance we are facing as a lesson that will elevate us in love despite the allusion to the contrary.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen