Be Still

Many years ago, a dear friend of mine took and shook my soul while we were on vacation together. She started to speak and because of the nature of my love for her, every word out of her captivated me. There I stood, hanging on to every word wondering what she would speak next, and she took me into a meditative trance almost instantaneously. She was sharing a spiritual awareness she was experiencing and without interruption or hesitation she spoke the following:
“Be still and know that I am God..
Be still and know that I am..
Be still and know that I...
Be still and know that…
Be still and know…
Be still and..
Be still..
Be.”

She spoke each line slowly, but without complete pause, to where I found myself for just maybe 30 seconds, in total and complete silence and stillness within me and connected to her and the life all around us. It had been years since I had felt that connected to myself and it was the very moment that stood out to me as the beginning of a new life. It, by no means, immediately healed or helped me escape the hell I had created inside and outside of me, but it reminded me that, if even for a few seconds, I hadn’t lost the capacity to connect and feel close to God and another person.

It has taken years for me to really grasp the power in that meditation, with each line calling out a distinct thought, pause, and reverence. As we can see with this meditation, before we get down to the most basic and simple statement: “be,” we are called to “be still.” Every human being, no matter how distracted, confused, or empty has what I believe is an eternal longing to just “be.” We have such frail, human ways to cry out for this-we beg our family or partners to just “love us as we are.” We spend much of our lives seeking and trying and praying to be accepted and “enough.”

Yet, what I believe is one of the most critical things we can do for ourselves-in order to heal, to awaken, to live fully-is to be still. It is in the stillness that we hear ourselves, but also that we can hear God. It is not enough to just be physically still. We must find ways to come into the reverent silence that cultural and religious noise often drowns out. In our darkest moments, in our weakest days, we can instantaneously embrace the sacred stillness that aches to be heard and known.

Our calm is only but a few slow breaths away, only but a half an hour of going within to honor our spirit’s calling…it doesn’t take much. We often blame our lack of intimacy with ourselves on not having enough time. I can assure you that once you have the taste of stillness and all the gifts it has to offer, you may find yourself saying you don’t have time for that television show, because you need to be still, instead.

I challenge you to be still...in order to find your soul’s deepest longing, to simply “be.”

Healing

It is without question that my words will never even come close to capturing the emotion, connection, and awareness that flood my being today. The season in which I have been going through in my life has been the most difficult, confusing, and uncertain place I have ever found myself in. I have literally wrestled with Light, with Darkness, and with myself. I have woken with panic attacks, slept with my eyes still feeling open through the loneliest nights, and wondered through the deepest pain if I will survive. My deepest fear has not been that I wouldn't survive, it has been that I would, but that I would be damaged and drained forever. I have been willing to run to doctors, to medicine, to therapists, to my lover, to friends, to the bottle, all in absolute terror that I simply could not live for one more day in the pain and emptiness my life seemed to always hand me.

And, then...something happened. It really happened. I stopped running. I stopped running to everyone, not just by not picking up the phone, but I emotionally and mentally and spiritually stopped running. And, instead of talking or crying or writing or DOING anything, I surrendered. If I had a nickel for every time throughout my life that I have prayed to God for help or landed on my knees in what I thought was surrender, I would be wealthy. No..this was different. This is different. It is not the act of getting on your knees that makes it surrender; it is the spirit letting go that makes the difference. You see, I know all of the movements that appear to be surrender. I can mimic being religious as good as any other person who grew up immersed in Church. Yet, I never intentionally "went through the motions." I have hungered to feel connected to God my entire life. But, for a very long time now, I was so angry and hurt by those who claimed to be followers of Christ, that I simply gave up on everything.

When I was 14 years old, a visiting pastor at our church called me out in a crowd of hundreds of people, and spoke something over my life. I wish that I had the recording, to hear each and every word tonight, but I destroyed it years ago as I felt I would never return to God. In essence, he said that I was called to do great things, but that it meant I would have to change some of my friends, some of my behaviors, to open up fully to the work set before me. I was in a crowd of people at the alter because he had been moved to have an "alter call" for people who had been sexually abused and carried the weight with them. With my legs shaking, I stepped out and walked up to that alter, for the first time admitting to myself, in a room full of people, that I needed help. In a perfect world, I would've walked up that night and been immediately healed from every scar and memory and given new eyes at which to see myself, but instead, I, of all people, received a powerful, loving message I have begun to remember like never before.

Instead of immediately receiving that message and feeling filled up inside, I grew weary through the years and desperately sought any means to alleviate my pain. It never ever worked. My story is such of the Prodigal Son. "I can do this on my own!" Yet, I am writing this now on my journey back home-back home to the Spirit that has never failed me. Today, that Spirit woke me up with the brightest sun beaming in my window-which would usually enrage me as I tried to sleep in. Instead, I could hear the Spirit's voice in me, calling for me to go outside and embrace the day set before me. So, with my book in hand, in what is none other than the most stunning, July day I have ever experienced in Florida, I sat by the water, reading about becoming God's best version of myself, and the wind enveloping my entire body.

You cannot possibly understand, for this is my journey, my emotion, my connection to myself and God...but I'm beginning to heal. Heal. The little girl who screamed and cried and could never find the love and help she was in need of is beginning to heal. The lost teenager who hated her body, her desires, her scars is beginning to heal. The grown woman who ran to empty bottles and empty relationships is beginning to heal. After spending so many years clinging to other people's stories of healing and awakening, hoping to find the answers to how to make it happen for me...I'm discovering...finally...that it's my story that holds the answers. I was made as a masterpiece of God...not the broken, dirty girl I thought I was. I have gifts that have only felt like burdens because I have not used them for the purpose in which they've been given. I'm just so grateful...so very grateful to have just a taste of the healing set before me.

And, just in case you were wondering...I will do those "great things" for which I'm called to do.

Revitalized

An inspired thought came to me today: you cannot be revitalized if you are anesthetized. Sometimes we're willing to be conscious of our attempts to numb ourselves, but all too often, we do it without even realizing it. It becomes so familiar to us, that we forget what it's like to truly feel. Yet, it is our very feelings which often signal to us a need we have-for change, for silence, for joy, for anything.

I've spent most of my life trying to dull down the feelings in me-for so many reasons-but ultimately, because I wanted to stop hurting. The pain never seemed to go away. And, as unbelievable as it might seem, it has only been until very recently that I'm coming to terms with the fact that you simply cannot wish or numb pain away. I've called myself an "addict" when I went to meetings. I've been quick to throw many labels on myself through the years, when in all actuality, the only label that fits is "human." I'm human and in all of my frailties and ill attempts at existing with what I thought was a crappy deal I got handed in life, the pain never went away.

I have used what could be pleasures in life-food, money, love, lust, margaritas...to simply keep the pain a little more at bay. Pleasures are meant to be savored and honored for their purpose-not abused to fill a void or numb a pain they could never possibly relieve. It sounds so simple, but when you've been managing your pain, rather than releasing it, it is hell.

I believe that there is only one way to be revitalized...and that is to no longer anesthetize ourselves to whatever needs healing. So, while the in-between of pain and healing is an uncomfortable, and often, scary place to be...the promise it holds is that I am on my way forward, no matter how many baby steps it takes. And, when you really stop looking back with sorrow or looking forward with fear, you create a space to connect to all that truly matters...the very moment you are in.