Rock

I am building on rock this time. Everything. My relationship with myself, God, my husband, my body, food, movement, sleep, my parents and friends.

What is rock? The heart. As soft as it is, it is the only truth that exists, I firmly believe this. Not once in my life has my heart EVER led me anywhere but to truth – Truth.  

You will know them by their fruits, Jesus says. 

In listening attentively to the soft whisper in my heart, I find peace, joy, and delight in the tiniest of things – light on the walls, bubbles on the dishes, dust, everywhere, beautiful music, smiling faces, juicy colors, nature. An abundance enough for any human to never be bored of for all eternity, because when we live from the heart we become like our Father – delighted by everything, so ancient and so new, always saying “Again, AGAIN!” 

From this place, we only want the same for everyone around us, patience is a no brainer (how could I EVER be bored or frustrated when I’m surrounded by all this delicious beauty?!), we are naturally kind, work is very appealing, never in a million years would we want to gossip or fight or do anything that would detract from this glorious connection. This is life on the rock.

The other thing? I learned this when my body was very sick. But the beauty was so strong and compelling, my heart and desire to live so strong, that I forgot my body very purposefully. I broke up with it. All the sensations that had ruled my life on the sand, I couldn’t feel them when I was absorbed in that bliss of the heart. And guess what? It stopped happening. I no longer experience any of those sensations. I am healed, in the flesh.

This time around, it’s not sensations but thoughts that at times attempt to intrude upon my peace and send me spiraling into an abyss of dark. The solution? You guessed it! The heart! Unfailing, no matter what my poor impaired brain may try to do, the heart is a soft cushion for me to land. A true home; a true North Star. 

And all those beliefs I used to have about myself and the world, how bad everything was, how incapable I was? Phooey, my heart said. So now I get to listen, and learn – what is truth?

 Read Scripture, listen for wisdom (known by its fruit) –listen to me –says my heart. I will build on rock, on experiences of beauty and joy, peace and love, and on the truths that many before me have lived. Day by day, I pull the energy of His truth – joy, love, gratitude, calm, peace – through my body and let it become the fabric of my being, quite literally.

I’ve learned that all the world is truly just an enormous invitation to joy, to play, to marvel and create, just like our Creator, to spread that joy that is so woven into our being that  we can find it no matter what turned off our light, or how long it’s been since we’ve seen it. 

And me? I am limitless, creative, beautiful, enough, cherished and loved beyond my wildest imagination. I can do anything. I have healed myself, let in this healing light and rebuilt my life, one moment, one choice at a time, on the rock of God’s truth that he planted in my heart when He knit me in my mother’s womb. And not just once, but twice am I doing this, by learning to love myself the way He does – unrelenting in pursuit of my perfection in His glorious image, put here to do sacred work. Not resting until it is complete. 

What about all that evil in the world, so many people ask? I used to be the foremost, struggling to reconcile evil and suffering with my knowledge of an all loving and all powerful God. 

Believe it or not, it is the unintended outcome of – love. No one, not even God, can make us love them. God had to give us the choice not to love Him, to love things other than Him, in order for us to have true freedom in choosing Him. Unfortunately, and many times through no fault of our own, many of us have bought into lies that we can find happiness outside of Him, outside of truth and have chosen evil thinking it would somehow satisfy the ache, the itch, the yearning that drives us all.

But in every dark place there is chance for the Resurrection to happen all over again in THAT heart, in THAT life, in THAT relationship or family. In THAT BODY – yes! I didn’t believe it before DNRS but God even wants my BODY to be filled with the glory of His resurrection, with joy, wellness, energy – LIFE!! Then filled with His life, our souls and bodies overflowing with His abundance, we are able to share Him effortlessly, scattering joy, peace, and love by our very presence, able to heal others with the healing love He has poured into us. We get to be the lamps, shining and undeniable proof of His goodness in a world that so desperately needs that proof.

I am dedicating this post to St. John Paul II, who was that proof for me during my darkest days. We had a photograph of him in our house, and when I looked into his eyes time disappeared and I saw a man who knew a Light that could turn the heaviness of suffering into the weight of glory. And then I found the Light.