God is Listening
Have you ever wondered why it is that most people don't seem to have spiritual gifts? I have. I have asked Steven a hundred times, "Why me?" He always responds, "You asked". He is right, as usual, when he says that. I did ask. I asked in my own way. My thoughts asked.
I remember praying. I prayed and prayed to God, making sure to include prayers for the people I loved and even those I didn't know to make sure that God knew I was not being selfish. How naive, now that I think about it. God doesn't think like that - we do. I remember praying this specific prayer, "Please help me, God. Help me. I don't know what to do. I feel lost. I don't know if I am going the right direction or if I am doing the right thing. I just don't know what to do. " I would cry myself to sleep some nights for the feeling of being so lost and alone and the silence that came after my prayers made the aloneness even worse. I knew that there had to be something wrong with that silence. It didn't make sense to me, yet I didn't know why I felt it was wrong. I felt there had to be something more. These thoughts continued until I passed out from exhaustion. Little did I know that God doesn't just hear prayers. He hears every thought, even those you think are only yours.
It reminds me of how my mom would say, "God is listening. He sees everything." I believed her but, since God never spoke to me, it was easy to forget and to tell myself that he really didn't have time to listen to my thoughts because he had so much to do. Why would God care about my thoughts? Yet I secretly felt guilty when I had bad ones. Did God hear that? Does he have his ears tuned to only certain thoughts so that if I thought something bad he would hear mine? A child or person can become paranoid by such thoughts so I often just pushed them out of my mind. Nah, God didn't hear that.
Then one day I heard a voice. God? I didn't know. I was distraught. My husband and I were strangers. My marriage was in shambles. Everything I was felt like a lie. Who was I? What was I doing living in Alaska? Why did I leave my family and the warmth of Texas for such misery?
The night was like most. I went to bed feeling lost. I was lost and felt stuck and all my options seemed like dead ends. What a failure I was! Then at night, when I finally went to sleep, I thought about how I need to get out of this life. But each night I concluded that I couldn't. I was a failure and there was nothing I could do about my life because no matter what, I would fail.
I woke up the next morning. Half asleep with my dreams fading as I opened my eyes. Out of nowhere a voice boomed, "Get out now!" I blinked and wondered if I had heard something and then was overcome with emotion. I started to cry. I was crying because I was happy and sad and scared all at the same time. The emotion said to me, "GET OUT NOW!" The emotion was enough. I took action.
I told my husband I had to leave. I couldn't stay there anymore. We had a talk and it was decided that I would leave Alaska and go home to Texas. Then the fear kicked in. Oh my God! What am I doing? But I left anyway.
Little did I know that the voice would return only five months later.
I got a job a month after moving to Texas. My coworker/boyfriend showed me a book one day that he thought was a great book. He told me to read it. It was "Life on the Other Side" by Sylvia Browne. Hmmm. Maybe this is not such a bad book? Who is this lady? What is a medium? I was curious.
I read the book. It made sense. I liked it. There were meditations in it and so I tried one. It was one where you visualize a garden, a safe place, and then things are revealed to you that have been hidden. My grief for my father was what lay hidden from me. It came to life as if he had died all over again. When the meditation was over, I knew he had visited me, but I didn't tell anyone. It was all my imagination. It was just a really strong emotional memory, that's all.
My boyfriend had a ouija board. He thought it would be fun to try it. I was open to that, so one night we got on it and tried to contact spirit. Nothing happened. The board was a dud. Then I got an idea. I need to be on the board alone. His energy was messing things up. I told him to get off. He laughed but backed off and watched. Then I started to operate the board alone. I remember him saying, "This is suppose to be a bad idea. You could be possessed!" I ignored him. I felt the pointer move. I wasn't moving it.
Soon we were talking to spirit and the pointer was going all over the board. We played with it for hours. Then something strange happened. I started to tingle. First in my hand, then my arm, then my chest, my legs my feet and finally my head. I freaked out and took my hand off the board. But the tingling increased until my whole body was buzzing. I was being possessed! I screamed to my boyfriend that I thought the spirit was in me. He jumped up and ran around me frantically saying something, but I don't remember what he said. I just sat there, stunned. The buzzing was so intense that I felt paralyzed by it. What was going on?
The buzzing eventually faded but something had changed. I felt different. I didn't know how I was different, I just knew I was. I didn't say much when I left at the early hours of the morning. What could I say?
The incident didn't scare me away. If anything it intrigued me. What was it that happened to me? What was different about me? I spent many evenings at my boyfriend's house playing with the board. He started to get disinterested but I was addicted. The board was talking to me. And not only was it answering the questions I asked out loud, but it was answering my thoughts. And another thing that intrigued me was, I could anticipate what it was going to write on the board.
I thought, it is me talking to myself, that is all. And many times I felt defeated by that thought. But I kept going back to the board. And I kept anticipating what it was going to write.
Until one day, I no longer saw whole words on the board, just random letters. But in my mind I got whole sentences and paragraphs. Eventually I realized I was hearing these sentences and paragraphs. Well, hearing is the wrong word. I was thinking them but they weren't my thoughts. Whose were they? Where were they coming from? God? Was God talking to me?
"No. I am YOU," was the answer I got. My instant thought was that I was crazy. Crazy people talk to themselves and so I must be crazy.
"No. You are special", was the thought I got. And again I thought that's what crazy people think, too!
This went on for a long time. I would push the thoughts away and focus on other things, but every time I returned to my original question, "Who is talking to me?" I got an answer. The same answer.
Eventually I asked other questions and I got lots of answers. Eventually the silence was gone and it was replaced with constant conversation. I wasn't alone anymore. Someone was listening. Someone was there to help me. But I still didn't know if it was God. I still wasn't sure what it meant when the voice said, "I am YOU"
I remember praying. I prayed and prayed to God, making sure to include prayers for the people I loved and even those I didn't know to make sure that God knew I was not being selfish. How naive, now that I think about it. God doesn't think like that - we do. I remember praying this specific prayer, "Please help me, God. Help me. I don't know what to do. I feel lost. I don't know if I am going the right direction or if I am doing the right thing. I just don't know what to do. " I would cry myself to sleep some nights for the feeling of being so lost and alone and the silence that came after my prayers made the aloneness even worse. I knew that there had to be something wrong with that silence. It didn't make sense to me, yet I didn't know why I felt it was wrong. I felt there had to be something more. These thoughts continued until I passed out from exhaustion. Little did I know that God doesn't just hear prayers. He hears every thought, even those you think are only yours.
It reminds me of how my mom would say, "God is listening. He sees everything." I believed her but, since God never spoke to me, it was easy to forget and to tell myself that he really didn't have time to listen to my thoughts because he had so much to do. Why would God care about my thoughts? Yet I secretly felt guilty when I had bad ones. Did God hear that? Does he have his ears tuned to only certain thoughts so that if I thought something bad he would hear mine? A child or person can become paranoid by such thoughts so I often just pushed them out of my mind. Nah, God didn't hear that.
Then one day I heard a voice. God? I didn't know. I was distraught. My husband and I were strangers. My marriage was in shambles. Everything I was felt like a lie. Who was I? What was I doing living in Alaska? Why did I leave my family and the warmth of Texas for such misery?
The night was like most. I went to bed feeling lost. I was lost and felt stuck and all my options seemed like dead ends. What a failure I was! Then at night, when I finally went to sleep, I thought about how I need to get out of this life. But each night I concluded that I couldn't. I was a failure and there was nothing I could do about my life because no matter what, I would fail.
I woke up the next morning. Half asleep with my dreams fading as I opened my eyes. Out of nowhere a voice boomed, "Get out now!" I blinked and wondered if I had heard something and then was overcome with emotion. I started to cry. I was crying because I was happy and sad and scared all at the same time. The emotion said to me, "GET OUT NOW!" The emotion was enough. I took action.
I told my husband I had to leave. I couldn't stay there anymore. We had a talk and it was decided that I would leave Alaska and go home to Texas. Then the fear kicked in. Oh my God! What am I doing? But I left anyway.
Little did I know that the voice would return only five months later.
I got a job a month after moving to Texas. My coworker/boyfriend showed me a book one day that he thought was a great book. He told me to read it. It was "Life on the Other Side" by Sylvia Browne. Hmmm. Maybe this is not such a bad book? Who is this lady? What is a medium? I was curious.
I read the book. It made sense. I liked it. There were meditations in it and so I tried one. It was one where you visualize a garden, a safe place, and then things are revealed to you that have been hidden. My grief for my father was what lay hidden from me. It came to life as if he had died all over again. When the meditation was over, I knew he had visited me, but I didn't tell anyone. It was all my imagination. It was just a really strong emotional memory, that's all.
My boyfriend had a ouija board. He thought it would be fun to try it. I was open to that, so one night we got on it and tried to contact spirit. Nothing happened. The board was a dud. Then I got an idea. I need to be on the board alone. His energy was messing things up. I told him to get off. He laughed but backed off and watched. Then I started to operate the board alone. I remember him saying, "This is suppose to be a bad idea. You could be possessed!" I ignored him. I felt the pointer move. I wasn't moving it.
Soon we were talking to spirit and the pointer was going all over the board. We played with it for hours. Then something strange happened. I started to tingle. First in my hand, then my arm, then my chest, my legs my feet and finally my head. I freaked out and took my hand off the board. But the tingling increased until my whole body was buzzing. I was being possessed! I screamed to my boyfriend that I thought the spirit was in me. He jumped up and ran around me frantically saying something, but I don't remember what he said. I just sat there, stunned. The buzzing was so intense that I felt paralyzed by it. What was going on?
The buzzing eventually faded but something had changed. I felt different. I didn't know how I was different, I just knew I was. I didn't say much when I left at the early hours of the morning. What could I say?
The incident didn't scare me away. If anything it intrigued me. What was it that happened to me? What was different about me? I spent many evenings at my boyfriend's house playing with the board. He started to get disinterested but I was addicted. The board was talking to me. And not only was it answering the questions I asked out loud, but it was answering my thoughts. And another thing that intrigued me was, I could anticipate what it was going to write on the board.
I thought, it is me talking to myself, that is all. And many times I felt defeated by that thought. But I kept going back to the board. And I kept anticipating what it was going to write.
Until one day, I no longer saw whole words on the board, just random letters. But in my mind I got whole sentences and paragraphs. Eventually I realized I was hearing these sentences and paragraphs. Well, hearing is the wrong word. I was thinking them but they weren't my thoughts. Whose were they? Where were they coming from? God? Was God talking to me?
"No. I am YOU," was the answer I got. My instant thought was that I was crazy. Crazy people talk to themselves and so I must be crazy.
"No. You are special", was the thought I got. And again I thought that's what crazy people think, too!
This went on for a long time. I would push the thoughts away and focus on other things, but every time I returned to my original question, "Who is talking to me?" I got an answer. The same answer.
Eventually I asked other questions and I got lots of answers. Eventually the silence was gone and it was replaced with constant conversation. I wasn't alone anymore. Someone was listening. Someone was there to help me. But I still didn't know if it was God. I still wasn't sure what it meant when the voice said, "I am YOU"
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