Ohio, not what we did, but how it affected me. A LONG but good post
I've gone through a major paradigm shift during the last couple of months. It has happened in three stages.
1 (Pre)Before my trip to Ohio
2 (Ohio) My trip to Ohio
3 (Post) After my trip to Ohio
1. PRE - Before going to Ohio (about 2 months before) I kept getting strong sentiment memories of Ohio - just throughout my daily activities. It wasn't so much the event that I remembered, but the feelings of peace, acceptance, and rest that cam from Ohio (for those that don't know, this is where much of my summer's and xmas's were spent with family). At first I thought that my grandma was going to die soon, but now on the other sided of vacation I see it and many other things differently
2. OHIO - My trip to Ohio changed my paradigm. First at my Uncle's, then in Toledo with Brian and Kristy, and finally at my grandma's...I continually felt an overwhelming sens of REST (the kind you can feel hit you). It was a major release like stress washed awy, mor than than, I didn't experience one moment of anxiey. We didn't work, we din't fret, we didn't even plan. We just were. I don't think it was so much the absence of these things that brought me peach, but a way of showing us a new paradigma. A way of being that will bring shalom continually.
3. POST - it's not that I consciously think to myself "be at peace like you were in Ohio." It has gone much deeper than that - it has sunk in --whatever cliche you want to use...no peace/rest is real and alive. I am not striving for it. What started as random sentiments has grown and spread throughout me. Sometimes I feel that I have been invaded by something stragne, other times I feel I have been opened up to something new.
It's really difficult to put something that's not even a feeling into words.
1 (Pre)Before my trip to Ohio
2 (Ohio) My trip to Ohio
3 (Post) After my trip to Ohio
1. PRE - Before going to Ohio (about 2 months before) I kept getting strong sentiment memories of Ohio - just throughout my daily activities. It wasn't so much the event that I remembered, but the feelings of peace, acceptance, and rest that cam from Ohio (for those that don't know, this is where much of my summer's and xmas's were spent with family). At first I thought that my grandma was going to die soon, but now on the other sided of vacation I see it and many other things differently
2. OHIO - My trip to Ohio changed my paradigm. First at my Uncle's, then in Toledo with Brian and Kristy, and finally at my grandma's...I continually felt an overwhelming sens of REST (the kind you can feel hit you). It was a major release like stress washed awy, mor than than, I didn't experience one moment of anxiey. We didn't work, we din't fret, we didn't even plan. We just were. I don't think it was so much the absence of these things that brought me peach, but a way of showing us a new paradigma. A way of being that will bring shalom continually.
3. POST - it's not that I consciously think to myself "be at peace like you were in Ohio." It has gone much deeper than that - it has sunk in --whatever cliche you want to use...no peace/rest is real and alive. I am not striving for it. What started as random sentiments has grown and spread throughout me. Sometimes I feel that I have been invaded by something stragne, other times I feel I have been opened up to something new.
It's really difficult to put something that's not even a feeling into words.