Freedom

Life is a fragile state.  It’s like thin glass with cracks forever forming.  We should treat the package of life with care and proper handling.  Making sure we try to keep the “THIS END UP”…..well up.

These past few weeks I have lost friends or friends of friends in record numbers.  Those who have passed were old, young &  in between.    Particularly hard was a long time friend & 2 young men in their late teens and early 20s with separate automobile accidents.

At times like this we lower our heads into our hands and cover our ears.   We simply cannot process such a thing.  One day there is vibrant energy.  One day there is laughter & brightness and a future and the next there is only silence.  How can that be?   

A few times in my life I’ve received what I consider a WORD from God.  An epiphany.   A mental picture in my mind or words so clearly spoken to my soul that I can bring them back into my remembrance years later with little or no effort at all.  Thoughts that were not created by me & sometimes not even sought out, but gifts from a place higher than myself.  These were eternal, ethereal thoughts.

Several years ago I woke from a dream and I had a KNOWING.   That’s the best way to describe it.   I just knew something that I didn’t before.  A question I hadn’t even asked.  A fact I hadn’t sought out.  It sounds so simplistic on paper.  The thought that I KNEW that life is not what we are truly striving for.  Our true goal in this life is to get to the next stop on our journey.  Our souls are brought here to experience and to love, and to hate and to forgive, and to learn, and to grow.  But our crowning glory will be when we finally get released from this life.  When our souls can rejoin God.

This may not seem like a new idea to many.  This may not seem like an epiphany at all to some.  When I write it down, it’s not the same as the vision I had.  It’s missing the clarity, the brightness, the impact.  But words are restrictive.  Words are one dimensional, but they are the tools we’ve been given. 

That being said, this epiphany doesn’t make me less appreciative of life.  It doesn’t mean we shouldn’t savor every moment of this life and appreciate it’s wonderment, but it removes all fear.  Before this KNOWING I realized I was living a very guarded life.  I grew up in a constant state of fear on some level or another. Fear of weather. Fear of the atom bomb.  Fear of losing those I loved.  Fear of dying in some form or fashion.  My behavior was affected.  I wouldn’t ride a roller coaster. I wouldn’t ride a motorcycle. I would nervously watch the weather when it clouded up.   I was afraid of wasting this beautiful life.  When I had kids my fear just multiplied & amplified.  I was now worried about more lives.   I’m a worrier and I come from a long line of worriers.  This gift of KNOWING from God took away my fear.  It RELEASED me.  It literally changed my life.  My vision expanded into limitless possibilities.  It’s a knowing that our entire existence on this earth is about living….about staying alive, about fighting for life & breath.  That is as it should be.  Life IS a gift not to be taken lightly.  A gift we don’t get twice, or maybe we do, but not with the same people or in the same time.   I believe some folks have older souls than others.  Does that mean they’ve spent more time with God before he gave them an earthly body?  Does that mean they’ve lived before and got other chances at life?  I’m not sure about either of these things.  Sometimes my Christian friends seemed shocked that I think this way.  But nothing in this takes away my belief in God and in redemption through Christ.  I think so many of us make our God fit into a very small, narrow box.  But I KNOW that he is so much bigger than my small mind can comprehend.

Does this take the sting out of our loss?  Does it take away the sadness, emptiness or pain of losing someone?  I don’t think so.  What it does is give HOPE & PEACE & LIFE to those of us who are left behind.

Take good care,
Cindy