The Power of Intentions

Intentions are powerful. I realized earlier this week that I’ve been very lax in setting intentions for my day. As a result, I’ve felt like I’m on a ship drifting directionless in the ocean. I'm doing a bunch of stuff, yet I don’t seem to be getting anywhere. So, I’ve recommitted myself to get back into creating my day daily and recording my successes to build faith and trust in the power residing in this earthen vessel.

Today was a prime example. About a week ago I had thought it might be nice to again visit my dad’s grave site at Quantico on today—it was a year ago today that he died—however, I wasn’t sure whether I was up to it or how I might get there. To be honest, I’ve been a bit emotional in the days leading up to Christmas and today even, remembering and still not fully able to make sense of what happened a year ago.

When my younger sister mentioned over the weekend that she was thinking of going and that my older sister wanted to as well, I decided to make my "it might be nice to..." a "yes, I want to do this." I then thought it would be nice to make it a family outing of sorts, including my brother, so mentioned it to him and my sister-in-law, hoping we could make it work. Weather was a factor as snow was predicted. Another seeming challenge was how to make the hour drive easy for my older sister, yet I held fast to my intent/desire to go.

The transportation issue was solved when I realized that my older sister’s van was plenty big enough for all of us to ride in comfort, and I could drive. As for the weather, I received a message last night from my younger sister that the snow had kindly decided to wait until after midnight tonight, if it appears at all.

I awoke this morning not feeling my best and for a brief moment thought I might not be  able to make the trip. But remembering I had set my intention, I remained confident it would work out. I had a chat with my body wherein I expressed how I wanted it to feel, and then went  back to bed for another hour. I awoke feeling fine, just as my sister had arrived. I showered and dressed. Happily when I asked my brother about going, he said “yes.” So, off we went to Quantico with me driving my sister’s van.

It was the perfect moment: the four of us standing at our dad’s grave site, which had already been decorated with a fresh pine Christmas wreath. It was a beautiful and sobering site. My sister laid the silk flowers I’d provided and an American flag on the headstone. She and my brother took pictures while each of us took notice of the other soldiers' headstones all adorned with wreaths, and some with flags, flowers and other items of affection left by their loved ones. And each of us in our own way reminisced about our dad and the day, a year ago, we said goodbye to him.

The drive down and back gave us the opportunity to bond—we laughed and talked about our dad, our mom and an assortment of other things as well as expressed our frustration, anger, and confusion in dealing with some of the hospital and rehab staff and paid caregivers who provided care to our dad during the last six months of his life. It was very healing for me and for the first time I feel ready to move beyond it and get back to living the amazing life I know my dad would want for me.

I have every intention of doing just that as I believe that I deserve an amazing happy life. It is the birthright of every person born into this earth.

“Is anything too hard for God?” has become my daily meditation as there are some situations in my life that feel challenging, yet I, the real I, knows that there is nothing too hard or too wonderful for God to accomplish. In those moments when I feel myself letting go of my intention for an amazing, rich and wonderful life, I remind myself that the same God, Infinite Spirit who created the universe and all that is in it and has for millennia after millennia kept the planets, sun and stars in perfect alignment as they circle around in space is surely more than capable of managing my itty bitty situations (no matter how monumental they might appear to me). To believe otherwise is insulting and rather ridiculous if you seriously think about it.

I may never know why my dad’s life ended when it did—years before he had expressed that he’d wanted it to—yet I believe the possibility for him to have lived as long as he desired and the possibility for him to have been healed of dementia existed and still exists. As my father often sang, “Jesus [the Christ in us] never fails.”

Intentions are powerful when you are willing to believe that anything is possible and, like the woman who approached Jesus for healing for her daughter, refuse to take “no” for an answer.

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Truly I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in their heart but believes that what they say will happen, it will be done for them. Mark 11:23

God Is...

The Price of Fitting In

This morning, I attended a wake/viewing for a long-time friend, someone I had known since I was a very young girl who passed away quite suddenly late last month. Surrounded by other friends from my childhood, I became acutely aware of how out of place I often feel around them and the struggle within myself to make myself fit into a world that I don’t really want to fit into.

There isn’t anything wrong at all with the reality in which my friends live. It works for them. It’s what they know and have come to accept is a “normal” way of life. You put in your 40 hours a week, enduring all manner of situations that annoy you, so you can earn money to buy a car, house, clothes, food, etc. That's how life works, right?

As a treat for your hard work and sacrifice, you spend your down time doing things that feel more fun: watching the latest crop of television programming intended to either entertain or infuriate you, going to the movies, maybe, taking a cruise some place when you have vacation time, provided you have enough money, attending church, or checking out a new or familiar restaurant. If you're married or have a family, you might do something with your partner and kids, or not. You stress about bills, the mortgage, car notes, your spouse and/or kids, and you get together to commiserate about your stupid bosses and co-workers, how your partner or kids are making you nuts, or how challenged you are trying to manage all the cadre of ailments you been diagnosed with.

If it seems I’m being judgmental, I’m not. My friends and family are content with their lifestyles—they’ve chosen it, consciously or unconsciously. Doesn’t matter, they seem content to do what they do.

As for me, I’ve always wanted more, or rather, something vastly different, as “more” implies judgment. Ever since I was a teenager, tween even, I've desired and still desire a different way of being, doing, and living my life. I could see it. I could feel it. It moved me to action on the one hand and terrified me on the other. Try as I might, I haven’t been able to let it go. In my imagination, my daydreams, I saw a preview of what my life could be and I cannot let it go.

As I’m pondering all of this, it hit me—the guilt I’ve been carrying with me since my tween, teenage, years for daring to want to be, do, and experience something different.

I have been that double-minded man spoken of in the Bible who asks yet wavers, attempting to walk the fence or tight rope between two worlds/two lives: the one that I truly want to experience and have long dreamed and continue to dream about—the one that keeps me up some nights and terrifies me—and the one that I think I’m supposed to experience because it’s the life that people like me live and it's "just the way things are." That other life, the one that haunts me, that’s for special people, other people, NOT ME people.

Granted, I have come close to stepping into that life in physical reality, damn close, throughout various periods of my adulthood only to watch it collapse like a stack of cards typically because of my actions. I’m only now realizing in this moment, that it hasn’t been so much my actions causing my dreams to collapse before me but my beliefs about what achieving them might mean for me and for those I care about. What will my friends think of me if I...? My family? My parents’ friends and associates?

I am a minister’s daughter after all and many of the dreams and desires for my life aren’t readily accepted among those in my or my family’s social circle of God-fearing Pentecostal Christians. Nor are they readily accepted as being appropriate or even achievable for members of my ethnic group or among the extended family consisting of the people who live/lived in the neighborhood in which I grew up—the people who have known me since my earliest memories of myself.

Fearing rejection, fearing loss of acceptance from my loved ones and, honestly, fearing the responsibility and the public scrutiny that can come with stepping into the spotlight, I self-sabotage. Trust me, this hasn’t been done consciously. Doesn’t matter though, as the results are the same. Rather than confidently heading in the directions of my dreams, I end up far off in the opposite direction.

If I were writing this five years ago, I would believe it’s part of God’s divine plan—that He is or was the one throwing up roadblocks because He wanted me to go in a different direction. I now know better. It is me and only me stopping me.

I want to be loved and accepted by those I love and care for, but at what price? When is the cost of fitting in and conforming too high? When is the sacrificing of your desires to please others too great? When is contracting oneself to avoid standing out so as not to risk being rejected/cut down by your tribe simply not worth the inner pain and suffering? Really, what does it profit a person (me) to gain the love of the whole world (or at least the people I know in this world) and lose her (my) very soul?

These are the questions plaguing my heart today. Truth, whenever I do that fitting in thing or contracting myself to be more acceptable to others, I always feel this “ick” afterward. I believe it’s my inner self’s way of calling me on my BS—“just stop it!”

I know the life I desire is here for me now; it is only waiting for me to choose it and commit to it. I also know that the universe, my external world, only ever reflects back to me what I am feeling or thinking internally. As long as I continue to believe that pursuing my dreams means being alienated from or rejected by those I love and care about, that will be my reality.

I have a choice to make and a life to live. Now's the time to get on with it. Teetering the fence between two lives is no longer a viable option for me.

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"All denial is self denial." Stuart Lindell, direct student of Neville Goddard

"If you construct in your mind a wall where there actually is none, you will force yourself to behave as though such a wall is actually pervasively in your way." Kidest Om

Christ in Me—The Power that Animates Me and All That I Behold

Life is a Curiosity to Be Explored

"Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." Matthew 18:3 (NIV)


It really does take adult humans to screw up a world and make things far more complicated than they were intended to or need be.

Children get it. They absolutely get it (until we train them to not get it.) Like the two toddlers, I watched playing together yesterday while attending an event at the National Mall. One black, one white. Both absolutely adorable. It was obvious both had only recently learned to walk as their little legs weren’t quite strong enough to keep them upright, yet they were all bundles of love, joy and play, eager to explore the world around them. They'd walk/run awhile, fall down, get back up again, keeping their parents running to keep up with them. They happily played together. No fear. No guile. No judgments about one being inferior or superior, good or bad, deserving or undeserving of their love or friendship because of their differing hair color, or eye color or skin color. Just all smiles and “hi!” They hug. They share (sometimes!). They kiss. They eagerly play together. They love—everyone and everything around them.

And the way they approach “prayer” is just as innocent, open and allowing. Have you noticed that when a child really wants something, they will ask and ask and keep until they wear a parent or guardian down? Children don’t take “no” for an answer. I’m convinced they honestly don’t understand, can’t relate at all to, the meaning of the word, especially as it pertains to them. Until taught otherwise, it appears children operate under the belief that everything around them is for them. I’m reminded of the story Joseph Prince tells of a 5-year old girl who before praying would say to her family: “I’m about to pray, does anyone want anything?”

Everything is possible in the mind of a child. Everything is wondrous. And the stuff they don’t find joy in? Easily forgotten as they set about finding more stuff to enjoy. Life is one big adventure to them—a curiosity waiting to be explored. As it is intended to be.

Disregard Appearances—Believe Only

"When it seems like nothing is happening, that is when everything is happening." - Catherine Ponder 

Believe only. That was today’s inspirational message from Joel Osteen, based upon the story of the Jairus, the man who sought out Jesus to heal his daughter who was gravely ill.

Jesus was interrupted several times on route to Jairus’ home to heal the young girl, and before reaching their destination, they received word it was too late: the girl had died.

But the story doesn't end there. “Believe only,” was all Jesus said to Jairus in one account of the story. “Believe only.” In spite of what you just heard, in spite of what you might even see later, “Believe only.”

Before Jairus himself could even say to Jesus “never mind, Lord, it’s too late,” effectively cancelling his request, he is told to “Believe only.”

“Disregard appearances, conditions, in fact all evidence of the senses that deny the fulfillment of your desire. Rest in the assumption that you are already what you want to be,” is how Neville Goddard frames it.

I will attest it is so much easier said than done. I am, as most people are, accustomed to judging my circumstances and conditions—whether they’re improving or getting worse or not at all changing—based upon what my five physical senses experience in the external world. It is challenging to accept that my physical senses do not and cannot see the whole truth of what is.

As Paul says: "So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal." (2 Corinthians 4:18)

Yet that is what I am determined to do—fix my eyes on what I desire to see and experience and disregard any and all things that don’t conform to that ideal. Believe only. Believe only, and even that which is dead can be restored to life.

Letting Myself Feel and Be

Today is my dad’s birthday. He would have been 93. I’m giving myself some TLC today and allowing myself to simply and fully feel what I feel.

I’m giving myself permission to sink into my feelings completely, without apology. Grief. Anger. Confusion. Disappointment. Fear. Whatever. If tears come, let them come—buckets full, if they must. No holding back. No judgment. Love and acceptance only. Perhaps I should be this way with myself every day.
 
I believe I spotted a blue butterfly as I was leaving my father’s grave site. It passed by so quickly, I wasn't certain. How curious, if it was one.

I am grateful to have been able to visit my father’s grave site. It’s nearly an hour drive and I’ve yet no transportation of my own. I had been wanting to make at least one visit this summer. Today was that day.

The stone looks perfect, as headstone’s go. The inscription was exactly as my family had requested. However, it was a bit disheartening to see his among a vast sea of headstones of other fallen soldiers. Don’t know why, or what difference it would make, but I kind of wanted his to stand out, to be bigger, to be given VIP status. He was certainly a VIP to me and to my family.

Truth? I'd rather he not be there at all, or more precisely, I'd rather he were still in his physical body. I know that being spirit we exist beyond the grave, and my dad's presence continues to be strongly felt, yet I'd rather he had lived out his 100 years in this physical realm as he'd always talked about in joy and health. I would rather be able to hold his hand, see his smiling face, or hear him say "hey, baby," a term of endearment reserved for his daughters and occasionally our mom. As much as I despise the phrase and its overuse, this is a case of "it is what it is."

Today, I’m just letting myself be and feel. Feel and be.

Are You Choosing What You Truly Want?

"The world is yourself pushed out. Ask yourself what do you want and then give it to yourself! Do not question how it will come about; just go your way knowing that the evidence of what you have done must appear, and it will." – Neville Goddard 

As I was doing my meditation this afternoon, the following question came up: Do you really go after what you want?

I allowed myself to expand on it further: Do you really go after what you truly want? Not what you think you can have or what you think you can get, or even what you think you should want or should have. And, not what others think you should want or should have or can get.

Do you really go after what YOU want? If not, why not? What is stopping you?

What reasons, rational or irrational, are you using to not have what you want?

What stories are you telling yourself to prevent you from going after what you want?

What excuses are you giving significance?

Who or what are you blaming and, hence, giving away your power to as being the cause of why you are settling for less than what you truly want?

What payoff/benefit are you receiving from not having or going after what you want?

Are you now able to release all of the stories, excuses, rationalizing, blaming, etc., and fully own what it is you really want and go after it?

Can you choose to love yourself enough to give yourself that which you truly want and desire?

Can you really allow yourself to have whatever you choose, without apology?

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"To ask for something in prayer is to simply lay hold of what’s yours. You have the right, and even the responsibility to command your life." – Chris Michaels, Science of Mind minister

"Our blessings happen because we choose them." – Robert T. Stevens, Conscious Language

“The only thing standing between you and your goal is the bullshit story you keep telling yourself as to why you can't achieve it.” – Jordan Belfort (the Wolf of Wall Street)