PART 6

Final Thoughts

Hello and welcome back… Now that we are done covering the tools, I thought it would be the perfect time to wrap this all up.

These tools that you have been listening to are basically puzzle pieces. These and pieces make up the key that will change your life… before  civilization was forged by way of education and jobs and technology, before    social media and all of those other things that have distracted humanity from the path of enlightenment. You can use these tools to help you find your way back to that path, by changing your perception. Kind of like in the Matrix, when Neo finally changes how he views the reality that he lives in and now it all looks different. . . almost… deciphered. 

Your shift in perception and your change will also change the way you actually see the world… in a way where you can always make sense of things.  Your entire existence is meant for this purpose, and with the purpose of getting you back to the raw connection with God You see, One thing, is asking God to enter your life…. And another thing is being physically and spiritually ready to being able to listen to Him when He speaks to you and feel Him when He is there”.  And its His presence that will make your making sense of everything possible. That understanding is what we call grace.

So anyways, you know, when man was created, God put into each of them, a part of His essence. And, This essence, is what we have come to recognize as the soul, which is why we are connected to Him in the way that we are.  We were never meant forget that connection but this world has been filled with stuff to distract us from what we’re really supposed to be doing in it. I mean think about it…. In the eternity of life, do you really think that you job or social status matters? Like who’s gonna care who you were, how many friends or followers you had, or what title you had while you were here on earth. Distractions, distractions distractions… All meant to make us lose sight of whats important. And those same distractions are also what separate us from God, because besides material distractions, there’s also all the stuff thats in our hearts and our minds that shouldn’t be there; Those things that fill up who we are: things like insecurity and resentment, jealousy, greed, selfishness, inconsideration, and pride… And when we are filled with these things, then we have no room for anything else… especially not the biggest thing of all…. Which is God.  So this entire journey has been set into motion for you so that you could learn how to “ clean house” and get ready to go back to Who you came from. So that your whole life and your whole existence makes sense.

This whole thing is about giving you a chance at a new life by helping you become a clean slate. Its giving you the opportunity to change your path in the only way that counts , regardless of who you were when you started. . .

So, this is where your path has led you.

You see, you spending your life talking about people for doing things wrong, doesn’t make you a better person. Making yourself feel better about yourself by comparing yourself to people that you thing are worse than you doesn’t make you a better person, and spending your life convincing others that you’re a good person doesn’t change who you really are. 

Coming to understand that you are the one who needs to be better and do better regardless of everyone else around you …. Thats humility. Its understanding that you cant judge anyone else. Its realizing that you are imperfect and that the first person that you have to change is yourself.  And then theres learning to accept others and be kind to them for no reason, regardless of what kind of people they are; learning to accept others with their faults because we know that we have our own closet full; its about truly forgiving others when they wrong us and learning to give people the benefit of the doubt. It is blind and unconditional love for everyone around you….  And that is purity of heart.  And so, Humility is what you would come to learn through the first tool and purity of heart, is what you would gain when you combined the first tool, with the second.  Only the heart’s purity, can give the mind clarity.

You know, ever since I finished going through my journey, I always feel God in my life now… and as you already know, I was one of those people who thought that I really didn’t need anything else in my life… I mean, it wasn’t perfect by any means, but I was happy, I was fine…. I was complacent … except that when I finished doing what I was asked and completed this process, I felt like if I had just woken up for the first time…. ( and I really cant explain it, but the colors in the world became more vibrant and I began to see the whole world and everything and everyone in it in a completely different light) I started understanding things in a completely different way… in a way that I, alone, could have never learned without the grace that I had been given. And for the first time, I realized that without God in my life -in this way- I was empty. Everything in my life doesn’t go perfectly or exactly the way I want it all the time…. But thats the beauty of it, it doesn’t have to because now, what I get is understanding “ why”…

A perfect example is a situation that I found myself in a few years ago. You see I have always been such a healthy, vibrant person…. And all of a sudden, I found myself getting sick… really sick. And at one point what started off as one thing, ended up snowballing into something that threatened to take my life. I was scared. My anxiety went through the roof as things got worse and worse because I found myself obsessing over my kids and who would be left to take care of them, how much suffering I would cause them, and how they’d grow up without a mom. They were 4 and 6 and horrible thoughts constantly swirling in my mind. I went to every specialist, ran every test, took every medication… and nothing. Nothing improved. Nothing made me better. I eventually became bedridden and between that and constantly being in and out of the hospital … I thought it was the end. And it’s not until I hit rock bottom, that I had no choice but to change the things that I could control, namely, how I was choosing to view the situation that I was in. I decided that it was time to find my way around that wall… anyways I talked to God a lot more ( asking Him to give me strength and courage—- asking Him not to leave me alone) and little by little I started to feel some peace… not a lot… but just enough so that the fear and anxiety and helplessness that had taken over my life had been finally subdued enough so that I could start to feel God telling me that it was all going to be alright. That I had nothing to fear, and I took that as Him telling me that He would make sure that my kids would be OK after I had gone, and slowly ( very slowly)- and likely because of the inevitability of it all- I allowed myself to fully find peace. As soon as I let go of everything that had been tormenting me, I realized that I wasn’t alone, I mean I could feel that there was something surrounding me and it felt as if I was being held. It was strange…that someone like me was important enough to God that He would take the time to comfort me and to be with me …but that’s the thing I learned through this … it’s that no matter what we are or what we do, we are all important to Him. Every single one of us…and that’s why He sent this message to you, again.  Anyways, after I made myself completely open and vulnerable to the situation that I was in. And, after I had come to accept, through Faith, that this might be God’s will, and that I had to trust in his plan because I trusted Him, things started to change again. You see, throughout this entire horrible situation, I asked God for many things… but I never asked Him “why”.  Whenever I prayed, I asked that He make me better if it was His will… and that if it was His will that I be sick, then I asked Him to give me the strength and the courage to handle it gracefully so that my children wouldn’t have to see me suffer. And its true what Is said about God… He always gives us more than what we ask for, because through all this, I changed. Things changed, the people around me changed… my perception, their perception…changed, all because of what I was going through.   and when people would find out about what we were going through, they would look at me with pity and sadness in their eyes… and I would tell them exactly what I will tell you… Don’t feel badly for me … because this has truly been an amazing blessing , because what we have experienced over the last three years has given my family and me the opportunity to grow more, learn more, and appreciate and love each other more within those 3 years, than I think that any of us could’ve accomplished  in an entire lifetime without it. And thats one of the great things about having that connection with God, I was able to see things through his grace. Its the beauty of being able to look back and see things in the way that God sees them so that you can accept them. And there really is no other way for me to explain this feeling of togetherness and constant companionship that God gives me regardless of what I’m going through and regardless of whats happening to me.

Earlier on, I mentioned how I was blind to God’s presence because of all of the emotions that I allowed to take over me. When you are emotional, and I am not talking about emotions of love or compassion or any of the other good ones that we need… but, more like when we carry negative emotions, like worry or anxiety, or anger and resentment… we cannot hear God … just like when we have a lot of stuff going on … these things drown out God’s voice. Its kind of like going to a concert and having the person next to you try and talk to you.

That used to happen to me a lot! … Forget this last chapter that I just told you about, I had anxiety all over my life. In work, the kid’s school and schedules and deadlines… I felt like I couldn’t control the worry, or control the anxiety and sometimes, I thought that God was trying to tell me something, but I couldn’t hear Him, so I would ask Him to repeat what was said, and on several occasions, He had to resort to communicating in more physical ways. There were so many examples of this…and I almost feel guilty now when I think back at how much I made Him work sometimes…

Anyways, I will give you one example, and its not even one of the major ones… but it was very loving and it is one that I love to share… So I was supposed to go to a retreat, for one of my children, that I really didn’t want to go to. I had been sick and I was tired. On the night prior to the retreat,  I notified the retreat leader that I would not be attending because my daughter had also developed a fever late that afternoon. I let them know that if she woke up better in the morning, that I would be there …. But honestly I was sure the fever wasn’t going to go down, considering that it had just begun, and I was relieved at not having to go. I went to sleep, late, that night and the following morning I woke up on my own, half an hour before the retreat was to begin. And I don’t know why, but I woke up with this intense feeling that I had to go to the retreat. But I really really didn’t feel like going. I wondered if this was God pushing me and trying to get me to go, but I wasn’t sure, so I conveniently decided that without more “ solid” evidence, I was not going to this retreat. As I proceeded to burrow myself under the covers, I received a text message from the retreat leader, asking me if I was coming. I wasn’t about to lie … because that would be wrong… so before I answered, I leaned over to check my daughters temperature so that I could use that as my excuse, except that her fever was completely gone, and again, I felt that push.  I thought that it might be a sign but again, I wasn’t sure ( I was just sleepy and tired)… and as I was texting the retreat leader back to let her know that I would, in fact, be going in ( reluctantly I might add), I received a text from her asking me to come. This was immediately followed by a text that said that she’d try to hold off on starting the retreat until I arrived, which was not like her at all. These retreats aren’t a huge deal and I knew she didn’t really need me for anything… anyhow she had never been so adamant about my attending anything, and I think that that’s what actually pushed me over the edge and made me hurry out of bed and commit to making it on time because, at this point, I knew that God’s hand must’ve been involved.  So, I ran around my house like a chicken with my head cut off…got dressed , got my children dressed, managed to get my husband to be ready on time, threw breakfast bars at them, and ran out the door. I drove all the way to the retreat, full of anxiety and worry, and sick to my stomach, because I was already 10 minutes late and what was worse, this thing was being stalled for me. I felt terrible I am a generally considerate person and I hated the idea that everyone responsibly woke up early and got out of their homes and still had to wait for me to show up. Anyhow, I arrived at the retreat center, parked, and  I decided to take a few deep breaths to help calm my anxiety, which didn’t help at all, and as I opened my car door to step out, I looked down because something bright caught my eye, and on the floor, facing up, towards me… was a small string of letter beads that spelled the word  “calm”, and was topped off with a tiny bead of a turtle. ( I actually have a picture of it). It was sweet and kinda funny, I giggled and realized that God had been trying to tell me that all morning as I ran around like a crazy person… I immediately calmed down, made my way towards the retreat, walked inside and sat down, still not knowing what I was doing there. But, as always, when it was time, I knew exactly what to do, and I did it. And in the end, I realized exactly why I had been asked to go.  After the retreat, several families came up to me, either to thank me for what I had said or to say that when I spoke, they realized that being there was God’s plan for them so that they could hear the answer that they had been asking for in prayer. I hope it serves as a reminder that in order to be able to listen to God, we must clear our minds and open our hearts.

So, there, now you know all that I had to tell you.

Please, take this message and learn to live it, and when you are done, use it to set an example to teach those around you how to live it as well. Speak to God every day and ask Him to give you the strength that you need to become the change, and use this information to supplement your personal religious practices, and remember never to let your faith in religion, overshadow your faith in God. So Be that change, Live that change, and inspire others to change.

Shoot for the moon, so that if you miss, you’ll still be amongst the stars… and don’t shoot low or aim in the middle, because if you do, ( the best case scenario is) that thats exactly where you’ll end up….. and you were made to be better than that.  

So, What is the meaning of life?  Who are we? And Why are we here? 

Well now you know… And not only do you know its meaning, but you know exactly how you can make the best of it and get to where you need to be, not only to change yourself, but to change the world around you. 

And remember that Your life on this planet is a perfectly crafted learning environment, and you are one of the millions of students in it. You are here to perfect who your are… and there are good forces that work towards your betterment, and there are other forces that work towards keeping you from that betterment. So, take advantage of the opportunity that you’ve been given.

Love is the most Powerful tool and is Gods most powerful weapon. Use it, be it, and live it.

So, “ Pray for Peace in the world, peace of heart, peace of mind, and peace of soul, and you will indeed have peace in the world. It will start in your own hearts.”