I remember lying in bed as a little girl and just being in awe of the fact that I existed. I would just cry and give thanks and bask in the glow of how amazingly blessed I was. I remember thinking "Why me?" "What did I do to deserve this?" I would think about stars and butterflies and everything beautiful and wonder why the same creator of those things would take the time to create me, little 'ol me. Where does that come from? Maybe an even better question is where does it go? At 6 years old or maybe even younger, I knew what a big deal it was to be here on earth. I knew how special every breath was. Do you remember ever feeling that way?
Until recently that feeling was in the distant past for me. I would look back on it and remember little chubby cheeked Lindsay lying on the bottom bunk feeling so blessed to be alive and literally vibrating from head to toe in gratitude. As an adult I wondered how I got to that place and how to get back. Somewhere along my spiritual journey, and since it hasn't been all that long I can say sometime in the past year, I began to try to meditate. I realized that I didn't know how. I still don't really know how... There is a step by step guide for dummies on Wiki How, but it wasn't what I needed at all. I felt lost when it came to quieting my mind, and I just didn't really feel anything when I tried. I decided to do something that I knew how to do. I decided to pray. I mean you often hear those words linked together "Prayer and Meditation..." How different could it be?
I remember as a little girl my prayer would be "Thank you for Mama, Daddy, Neil, Nathan, Lauren, and Leah. (said as fast as I could say it, and I can still speed through that string of names to this day! :) and please forgive me for my many sins. Amen." And then once I was older I rarely prayed. I prayed when something was going majorly wrong for me and when I felt extra guilty about something dumb I had done. As an adult I never made a habit of praying, I guess I was too confused about my beliefs and which ones still fit into my life that I kind of let them all hang in the air for awhile. Anyway, I decided to try prayer instead of "meditation." It was late and I was lying in bed with my husband and little girl, and I just began to pray. This time instead of rolling through a list of names and throwing out an umbrella to catch and cleanse all of my sins, I really prayed. I prayed and thanked God for my children and for the unique things that make them who they are, I asked for help with any issues they were facing, I sent love to their past, present, and future incarnations. I just thanked God for them and for my wonderful husband, who at times I've felt like I didn't deserve love from. I again felt like that little girl, vibrating from head to toe in gratitude and wonder. I found it! I know now that being thankful and truly embracing the good and not even acknowledging the bad, could get me there. Through my teen years I had lost it because I only prayed when I needed to repent from something that I felt ashamed of. Through my adult years I only prayed when I was at wits end and had nothing left to do. But now I was truly just wallowing in the amazing things that I have been blessed with, the lives that I have grown in my womb, the man who I call my own, and the fruit of the efforts we have put into our life together. I am so thankful and now, since I still don't really have the hang of the meditation thing, I spend my nights in bed just giving thanks. I cannot even begin to tell you what a difference it has made!
We all make mistakes, and maybe you're that person who prays out of desperation and guilt, but believe me when I say that those mistakes are part of our journey. We are here as pieces of God, pieces of source energy, experiencing life. We knew we would make mistakes, and it is truly part of it. Instead of waiting until you are at the end of your rope, try giving thanks and praying for the good things now. Even if you can only find a tiny fragment of something to be grateful for, it is truly a start. Now when I get to that place of gratitude, I do feel like little Lindsay again. I can feel such an amazing energy around me and I know that angels and all things loving are swirling around me and celebrating all of the good along with me.
My idea and definition of who God is has changed, but I do feel like I am still in touch with the same loving source of life that I felt in such a raw form all of those years ago. I am happy to think that my little ones can feel that too. I hope they rediscover it sooner than I did. I am thankful that no matter what box we put God into or what box we eventually take God out of, that the same source that created such a beautiful world and such intricate things would flow through us. Maybe I don't see a bearded man in the sky anymore(aka Ariel's Dad only not in the ocean), and maybe I don't even think of God as a "he" anymore, but no matter how we define God, God is always here and always ready to dance.
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