Reflections on reflections...
These days, I love reading what I have written in the past year or so. While I've not posted much in the way of quantity, the quality of what I've posted bouyes me in the re-reading of my entries. This is in stark contrast to some of my earlier writings when everything was a redundant spiral of chaos. Presently, I write and re-read to encourage me through my imperfections. Previously, I wrote only to have a voice; to bolster my ego and make sense of my pain by coloring it with language that hopefully, would disguise it as something less ugly than it was.
This year has been full of changes and surprises. The lesson I have learned this year is that if one is given the gift of restoration, surely trials will inevitably follow and with it, the slow ebbing of the memories of the multitude of blessings one may have experienced in those times of quiet joy and gratitude. Also, too, will be the waxing of temptations, the forgetfulness of how one's frivolities might have been so harmful to self and others in the past. Especially if after the season of restoration comes a season of change and with it, the impending sense of loss and grief. However, despite this, there is the consistent difference in my reaction to such things which is a constant reminder that the work of healing that was undertaken has taken hold and sunk deep into the core of the soul. No more the reactionary but much more the contemplative; no more the crushed and defeated needing consolation in every storm but much more the weathered and well-worn able to withstand trials without the crumbling spirit.
Such it is with me these days. I find myself learning to cast aside child-like idealism but not faith or wisdom. Some days, however, I still find myself growing impatient for not being able to sustain that state of contentment that I extolled as my boone companion in the last 18 months simply because in experiencing change and loss, I become discouraged by the return of impermanence to my world and in doing so, my sense of having undergone change and healing is thereby lessened. Even though my personal circumstances remain stable, my surroundings are changing and this heralds the onset of a global shift in my world within the next 18 months. There is nothing tangent as of yet but like an old man who knows the weather is about to change by the aching in his worn-out knee, so is change upcoming in my world.
Thankfully, I am being ever reminded by God that I AM is love; that Love is not just a place or a set of people but an Entity of Perfection which is inscrutable but which, if we are willing to trust and have faith, will continue to reveal Itself and which fully knows us even in our inability to fully comprehend I AMs' infinite perspective. We have not been left orphaned or alone in the dark without ways of knowing what the character of God is like. I AM didn't leave us to simply guess but left us stories of others' experiences with I AM so that we might know and feel comforted by them. God has spoken and foretold all that we might expect. In the faith story in which I believe, I AM even incarnated I AM into man in order that no one could say that I AM wasn't willing to go through that which I AM asked of us as imperfect humans burdened with sin and surrounded by the evidence of evil. I AM came with the full knowledge of that which should be accomplished in order to rectify the necessity of sin and ultimate evil to provide us with free will and comparsion/contract to Perfection. All of those things and more were foretold and have been and will be fulfilled in days to come.
In this, and not in the temporal. must we take comfort. Only in learning to love and be loved wisely, to Give Grace and Forgiveness to ourselves and others despite our imperfections and mistakes, which we will surely continue to commit until we die, will we ever be able to knit together any semblance of a higher perspective wrought over time that is cohesive enough to help us to forgo the temporal which if pursued exclusively, will rob us of that which we truly desire- truth, hope, joy and peace and most importantly, the ability to choose to spend eternity with perfect Love.
In order for the rose bush to bloom, the gardener must cut away all it's blossoms lest the bush expend too much energy feeding that which is inevitably dying. In doing so, the Gardener conserves the energy of the bush so that it may once again focus on blooming.
and so it goes with God and us. I AM is our constant, omnipotent, ever-mindful and ever watchful garnder only allowing that which might strengthen us, even if painful or temporarily inscrutable, to enter into our lives; pruning away our blossoms so that growth will continue to occur. I AM promises that I AM in the end will be altogher perfectly Just and perfectly Loving regardless of whether we can see the sense in the interwoveness of tragedy and triumph on our myopic, limited scale. All I AM asks us to do is to trust and believe in Unconditional Love wrought through Perfection and in doing so, to listen. learn and grow as much as we are able in order to emulate these character traits.
I came across a quote by Dostoevsky that I feel perfectly exemplifies this:
"I believe like a child that suffering will be healed and made up for, that all the humiliating absurdity of human contradictions will vanish like a pitiful mirage, like the despicable fabrication of the impotent and infinitely small Euclidean mind of man, that in the world's finale, at the moment of eternal harmony, something so precious will come to pass that it will suffice for all hearts, for the comforting of all resentments, for the atonement of all the crimes of humanity, for all the blood that they've shed; that it will make it not only possible to forgive but to justify all that has happened."
Again, I am left to wonder what the future holds. However, I can finally say my life and my past in the last 3 years have landed me with a stability I have never before achieved and a life I could never imagined. If in I AM's infinite Grace, Love and Knowledge, this not yet the end of the road and these are not those with whom I shall reside, know and love until my old age, then something more glorious must await and if not more glorious, certainly filled with more growth experiences. How blessed am I to have a Creator who made me in such a way that my abilities are such that I would be entrusted with such scenarios in which the depth and breath of the human soul is ever stretched! To this will I continue to revisit, hold fast and focus on even in those days when I am in between blooming and having been freshly pruned. And with this, I will end once again refreshed and mindful of my blessings ( and still not knowing how to spell!..lol)
With Love and Blessings,
Elizabeth
This year has been full of changes and surprises. The lesson I have learned this year is that if one is given the gift of restoration, surely trials will inevitably follow and with it, the slow ebbing of the memories of the multitude of blessings one may have experienced in those times of quiet joy and gratitude. Also, too, will be the waxing of temptations, the forgetfulness of how one's frivolities might have been so harmful to self and others in the past. Especially if after the season of restoration comes a season of change and with it, the impending sense of loss and grief. However, despite this, there is the consistent difference in my reaction to such things which is a constant reminder that the work of healing that was undertaken has taken hold and sunk deep into the core of the soul. No more the reactionary but much more the contemplative; no more the crushed and defeated needing consolation in every storm but much more the weathered and well-worn able to withstand trials without the crumbling spirit.
Such it is with me these days. I find myself learning to cast aside child-like idealism but not faith or wisdom. Some days, however, I still find myself growing impatient for not being able to sustain that state of contentment that I extolled as my boone companion in the last 18 months simply because in experiencing change and loss, I become discouraged by the return of impermanence to my world and in doing so, my sense of having undergone change and healing is thereby lessened. Even though my personal circumstances remain stable, my surroundings are changing and this heralds the onset of a global shift in my world within the next 18 months. There is nothing tangent as of yet but like an old man who knows the weather is about to change by the aching in his worn-out knee, so is change upcoming in my world.
Thankfully, I am being ever reminded by God that I AM is love; that Love is not just a place or a set of people but an Entity of Perfection which is inscrutable but which, if we are willing to trust and have faith, will continue to reveal Itself and which fully knows us even in our inability to fully comprehend I AMs' infinite perspective. We have not been left orphaned or alone in the dark without ways of knowing what the character of God is like. I AM didn't leave us to simply guess but left us stories of others' experiences with I AM so that we might know and feel comforted by them. God has spoken and foretold all that we might expect. In the faith story in which I believe, I AM even incarnated I AM into man in order that no one could say that I AM wasn't willing to go through that which I AM asked of us as imperfect humans burdened with sin and surrounded by the evidence of evil. I AM came with the full knowledge of that which should be accomplished in order to rectify the necessity of sin and ultimate evil to provide us with free will and comparsion/contract to Perfection. All of those things and more were foretold and have been and will be fulfilled in days to come.
In this, and not in the temporal. must we take comfort. Only in learning to love and be loved wisely, to Give Grace and Forgiveness to ourselves and others despite our imperfections and mistakes, which we will surely continue to commit until we die, will we ever be able to knit together any semblance of a higher perspective wrought over time that is cohesive enough to help us to forgo the temporal which if pursued exclusively, will rob us of that which we truly desire- truth, hope, joy and peace and most importantly, the ability to choose to spend eternity with perfect Love.
In order for the rose bush to bloom, the gardener must cut away all it's blossoms lest the bush expend too much energy feeding that which is inevitably dying. In doing so, the Gardener conserves the energy of the bush so that it may once again focus on blooming.
and so it goes with God and us. I AM is our constant, omnipotent, ever-mindful and ever watchful garnder only allowing that which might strengthen us, even if painful or temporarily inscrutable, to enter into our lives; pruning away our blossoms so that growth will continue to occur. I AM promises that I AM in the end will be altogher perfectly Just and perfectly Loving regardless of whether we can see the sense in the interwoveness of tragedy and triumph on our myopic, limited scale. All I AM asks us to do is to trust and believe in Unconditional Love wrought through Perfection and in doing so, to listen. learn and grow as much as we are able in order to emulate these character traits.
I came across a quote by Dostoevsky that I feel perfectly exemplifies this:
"I believe like a child that suffering will be healed and made up for, that all the humiliating absurdity of human contradictions will vanish like a pitiful mirage, like the despicable fabrication of the impotent and infinitely small Euclidean mind of man, that in the world's finale, at the moment of eternal harmony, something so precious will come to pass that it will suffice for all hearts, for the comforting of all resentments, for the atonement of all the crimes of humanity, for all the blood that they've shed; that it will make it not only possible to forgive but to justify all that has happened."
Again, I am left to wonder what the future holds. However, I can finally say my life and my past in the last 3 years have landed me with a stability I have never before achieved and a life I could never imagined. If in I AM's infinite Grace, Love and Knowledge, this not yet the end of the road and these are not those with whom I shall reside, know and love until my old age, then something more glorious must await and if not more glorious, certainly filled with more growth experiences. How blessed am I to have a Creator who made me in such a way that my abilities are such that I would be entrusted with such scenarios in which the depth and breath of the human soul is ever stretched! To this will I continue to revisit, hold fast and focus on even in those days when I am in between blooming and having been freshly pruned. And with this, I will end once again refreshed and mindful of my blessings ( and still not knowing how to spell!..lol)
With Love and Blessings,
Elizabeth