Spiritual expression is Love

I’ve wanted to write about my own experience with God for a while now, but didn’t, for a variety of different reasons. One being I didn’t give myself the time to write. Secondly, I felt I needed to be brave to write about how I experience God in my life. Recently, a guy on twitter asked me why I didn’t write more often on my blog & my truth is that I really don’t have an excuse. I give far too much time to twitter & facebook in my spare time.

As most of you may know, I am a qualified relationship mentor & I believe that the most important relationship we have in life is with self. Well, I also believe, that a relationship with God is as important. God for me is God the father & his son Jesus. I tend to pray to them and our lady the most. I love the Sacred Heart & always have. When I have found it really hard to pray in my life, then I tend to say, Oh most Sacred Heart of Jesus, I place all my trust in you. It was only when I became a mother myself that Our Lady, became important in my life too. My reason for loving the Sacred Heart is because his heart is exposed and from his heart there is love. I suppose I like to think that I am a heart person & when I reflect on the passion of Christ and what he went through, then he must have loved all of mankind to have gone through such pain & torture for us. Spiritually I am quite traditional. I love praying and any day or days, (as is the case), that I don’t pray, I feel there is something missing in my life. That “something” is solid & good & I have a sense of connection, a feeling of being whole, which I loose, when I disconnect from prayer. I like going to mass too, but rarely go! I’m smiling here because I self-sabotage on what I love to do! I like confession. But again, rarely go. I do the same thing with dance, I say this to give balance.

Who is God? Well when I had religion class in primary school, I was told “God is our father in heaven”. That is seriously abstract isn’t it? In answer to my own question, no, it isn’t as abstract as I may have first thought. God made me & you and I believe, we are all made in his image. So if I am made in God’s image, then what is God’s image? One word, LOVE. Then I am love. I believe love is our eternal legacy to the world & to the people we meet in life. I truly believe that if we really realised how much we are loved by God, that we would weep with joy. Sit with that for a while. Imagine if all the people on earth truly believed & understood we are unconditionally loved, for who we are, warts and all, wouldn’t the world be a fabulous place to live in.

All I need to do is look at the beauty of our world, to see the beauty of God’s love for all mankind. God made us a magnificently beautiful world to inhabit while we live our lives here on earth. Sometimes, I don’t allow that truth settle into the core of my being. I forget.
Then when I try to get any other concept of God, it truly boggles my mind. My human brain just doesn’t grasp that God was always there. Or how could he have thought of making the universe, the stars, the sun, the moon, the whole galaxy! And how was God always there?!? Looking at nature, with its seasonal changes, the PH balance in Oceans, all the animals, flowers & trees, God thought them all up. He thought each individual up too. Now I know you can say, well my Mum & Dad made me & certainly that is true, however, of all the sperm that made it to the egg, one sperm gets through & you are made. Who decides what sperm gets through? Is that a Divine decision? Is that what is so sacred about conception? I do know this, that when both my children were conceived, our love making on both those nights, had an added dimension & was incredible special.

Given the life I have lived, I used to ask this question, how come I didn’t end up a hooker and a drug user or an alcoholic? I am a drug user, in that I smoke cigarettes & I know why I smoke them. I do drink wine, but I am lucky in that my body cannot take a lot of alcohol. I can’t bear to be drunk & sick, so I just don’t go there. I didn’t end up a hooker, mainly because as a child I felt I was one. That is true & I did feel huge shame & guilt about it when I was much younger, until I realised that I didn’t own that shame and guilt. I was after all a child. On a deeper level, I truly believe & it took me years to answer this question for myself, that it was my relationship with God that kept me safe. Some might say, the “Straight & narrow” path, however, in my experience there is nothing straight and narrow about God. God is all encompassing in my experience.

When I was about 15 years old, I hated my father with a passion, I was consumed with hate for him. Then one day, on my way to mass, quite near the church, this voice came into my head and said, “Trich as long as you hate him, you will destroy yourself”. It was a physical jolt to my body & in that moment, I knew this voice was right. Yes you could say this was my own inner wisdom saying this to me, and maybe you’d be right, for me though, I felt it was God saying this to me. From that moment on I prayed so that I would forgive my Dad & equally prayed that I wouldn’t have any sexual hang-ups. Through my prayers, I achieved both. I also did a lot of therapy too. And I started reading psychology & self-help books from the age of 18. From my mid-thirties, I went to college to study human behaviour.

I learned that there are 8 expressions of self, one of those expressions is Spirituality. We are all spiritual beings. It is an area I neglect sometimes. It is an area I love too. Religion doesn’t bother me, because when I was young, I realised that there was only one God anyway & what really matters, is how I live my life here on earth. One of the biggest lessons I learned very early in my life, is that when someone was kind & compassionate to me, I grew taller on the inside, it helped me to feel good about who I am. Much later in my life, I realised that I needed to be both kind and compassionate with me. I didn’t (I hope), forget a kindness done to me. When I realised that kindness lifted my own spirit, I decided to be kind towards others. Through understanding myself, I was able to be compassionate towards people and in so doing, became compassionate towards myself. I believe they are God’s gifts to us all, if we choose them. After all, God gave us the right to choose or free will as some may like to call it.

This year I did a lot of reading on “Near Death Experiences” and without exception, those that travelled towards the Light, through the tunnel and ended up on the other side, experienced in the core of their being, unconditional love. So much so they did not want to return! I have two ambitions in life, one is to be who God made me to be, my need is to be my own unique expression of him here on earth. For me that means being the best of who I am and accepting the worst of who I am and not judging either. In those times where I am not in my best place and hurt those I love and I do, is to seek their forgiveness and my own forgiveness & to say I am sorry. This year saw me have many nights of tears for the hurt I have caused to others & myself in my life. I did try to make amends, but because the person I had hurt, was so hurt, they rejected my attempt to make amends. I don’t for a moment blame them, I accept this is where they are. I also accept when I hurt them, that was where I was! I do wish the outcome had been different.

My only other ambition is that when I die I go home to heaven. I truly desire eternity being in the presence of unconditional love. God.