All this week I have thought myself into forgetting where I am and where I am going. After all this time I see it is still so easy to do. Then, that same forgetful thought, once I have grabbed onto it and called it Me, transforms into something more imposing: it whispers menacingly in my head - day and night - that I am failing in my efforts to know You. Again, I find myself overwhelmed by worries with the world, and, through the fog of the suffering caused by these worries, I cannot see or even believe that You can do anything to help me.
I have tried to remain diligent anyway. I sense even in moments of very little consciousness of what I am being in these moments that I am supposed to remember something vital about this life. This unexplainable feeling seems to ask me to look at...what? Perhaps, I think, I am being invited to look at what is hurting within me in order that I might see Your Will in that pain. Of course, I know, even in my darkest moments, that it is not You Who brings the pain, but I also know from experience with Your Majestic Ways that, if I just go into the pain of which I am so afraid, I will find You patiently waiting there to reveal to me that what I thought was real was but an illusion. There have been several situations this week, while I was doing things but forgetting what I choose to be because I was so immersed in the doing that I could not conceive of being anything, in which the pressure within me became so unbearable that I just cried out inwardly to just know Your Will for me.
I have known futility firsthand this week (not for the first time by any means), and it is this: trying to find an escape from who I am through judgements about this world and me and comparisons to what my thoughts tell me I should be doing about the conflicting states I find myself in.
You have been with me throughout, and, if I was not sure of this, You renewed my faith again today. While driving home from another day of what I have judged to be burdensome and banal work, I was able to see clearly, even if for but a moment, just how far You have brought me from where I was. For instance, at the first sighting of troubled thoughts about an event or person or situation, I used to run away - many times physically run away and many times run away into some self-pity or despair or depression. I have felt that tug on my mind to run again this week. Yet, I did not surrender to its unconscious prodding.
I will stay the course, not out of any stubbornness or fear of being wrong, but out of a deep longing for You and a pervasive understanding that Your Love is my only salvation. Thus, walking back to where I used to be - where my mind finds a familiar, but tormented home - just because my mind, in its panic over how far we've travelled from the lies it has built its home upon, tells me I am going in the wrong direction is now known to me to be the most useless option. In fact, it is no longer an option, so clear is my vision as I look upon the ruinous wasteland this constant "turning back" has made of me up to this point. I never could have seen with this clarity before You (although I acknowledge - as if You need me to do that - that You were always with me only I cared not to notice), and this gift from You alone has changed me in ways I could never describe to anyone who has not personally seen Your Will in their own transformation without that person thinking me insane. You are allowing me to see just who I am being - whether my mind likes it or not - so that I may know intuitively the next step toward transcending any lower levels of being I have trapped myself within, which moves me, then, into successively higher remembrances of who I really am. I must now take action that is guided by the Light of the knowledge You are giving me about myself. The key is that I must take these new actions despite the protestations of a mind that sees its power being usurped by Your Higher Wisdom, and, because it feels betrayed, it accuses the Wisdom of being Ignorance. Yet, I know You are true because of this: You do not judge or hate the mind for judging You to be ignorant and even evil. Instead, You welcome the confused mind, too, to share in Your boundless Love.
You found Me! I did not find You. There is ultimate comfort and peace and joy in this understanding. You never required me to go on a journey to search for You. You have always been there just waiting for me to notice You, never pushing me to see you and never becoming impatient with my ignorance. You have designed this wonderful life to help me remember that You never forget me, even if I forget about You. I know there is nothing that You will not do for me, if only I remember to ask for Your Help. You will not force Yourself upon us because that would defeat Your purpose for creating us, and this contributes to another way in which You do not judge us: whether we choose Your Will or not in any given moment, You are always standing by to lighten our burden even in that moment in which we have denied Your ability or power to show us the way in this Life. We cannot know a Love any greater than this, but we can choose to be this Ultimate Love that is You.
The diligence that You have provided me was born out of Your diligent watch over me. Understanding today (again) that You found me, not the other way around, has obliterated any false thoughts about what You can do for me when my mind puts me on the chopping block. The doubts I experienced earlier this week while being consumed by worry and fear and frustration could only, and can only, be healed by You, never by the promises these same negative feelings manifest in my thoughts. You found Me! And for this, I am eternally grateful.
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