You called; I came

My posts this week follow the theme I posted last week, “You called; I came.” Each day’s quote is a prime example of God’s voice as I heard it in my mind. What I have learned is that God doesn’t think at all like me, so that his voice is highlighted within me whenever I hear it.

“Hold all possible outcomes equally.” In 2000 my husband had a bout of lymphoma, a type of cancer, underwent chemotherapy and six months later was declared cancer free. Three months after that, in December, he was back in the hospital with the cancer raging again. I was dragging myself through the days. By 3 p.m. I’d be wishing it were bedtime so that I could crawl under the covers and hide. I heard this thought one day, took it as an invitation and worked at that attitude until I could hold all possible outcomes equally. I had been just terrified that he would die.

And so for the next 6 to 8 weeks of his life I was filled with joy and sorrow, neither one polluting or overcoming the other. Shortly afterward I was given the gift of faith so wide and deep that I felt like the house built on rock—that nothing, nothing at all, could push or pull me off that rock. And so I was able to support Hank and our kids and our friends through this passage. Even when the doctor told us it was time to call in hospice, I still thought that though the possible outcomes were fewer, but that death was not the only one.

He did die and I dropped into the deep grief at my loss of my partner in life. And I dealt with his death like I had dealt with childbirth—millions of women have been through this. I could do it, too. I knew what needed to be done—to grieve fully.

“Take Spanish.” The first few years after his death were full of tears, but the Lord also put many interesting things in my path. From two mission trips to Haiti to studying about Mexican-American Culture in San Antonio to taking Spanish. I met weekly with a tutor for five years. I had learned French in high school and college, but this was my first attempt at another language. During the second year she had me writing paragraphs in Spanish which she would correct. At first I wrote about my family and friends and what was happening in my life. As my paragraphs grew into essays I began more and more to concentrate on the spiritual life. As I moved to Charlotte 5 years later, I was beginning a bilingual blog on my website.

My tutor was my Spanish editor. Within a year she had had a bad fall and was unable to do any work, so I closed out the Spanish blog and concentrated on the English one. At first I was posting a couple of times a month, but two years later I made a commitment to post every Monday. I have never missed a Monday. The ideas just keep coming. I usually have 5 or six I am editing in advance of posting them. And then last year I published my first book. And I am in the process of writing a second one. All because I took some Spanish lessons.

“Move to Florida to be close to your daughter and grandchildren.” Hank had died in 2001. I sold our house in 2006 and was living in the Bay Area still, in an apartment. My daughter had 4 grandchildren and I felt like I didn’t see enough of them. Or if I traveled to Florida to see them often enough, I was never home. So I decided, with their agreement, to move to Florida. Just as I was signing papers on a house in Florida, My daughter called to say that Jason was interviewing in Charlotte. So before I even moved to Florida, they were in Charlotte. So I moved to Charlotte, a great move for me.

Not only was I close to my daughter and her family whom I could see all the time, I was living in an area where a person’s religion had real importance to them. The first question people asked here upon meeting someone was and is, “Where do you go to church?” What had been a privately held personal belief system spilled out into the atmosphere. I could relax in ways that I hadn’t been able to in California.

“You called; I came. I always come when you call.” Unlike the previous examples of God speaking to me, I said this to God in an ritual at a Medicine Path Ceremony. My children are all on different paths, different from each other, and from their father and me. One is a born-again Christian, the second one converted to Catholicism and the third is part of this Medicine Ceremony in which each person makes a prayer of intention for their lives. This was mine: this public declaration to God is really a highlight of my life. I remember well the feeling that day. I hadn’t planned what I would say, but the quote says it all. There was something so powerful about making a public declaration of who I am.

There were lots of other words spoken to me by God over the years: books to read about the saints and other religions, classes to take which opened up my own creativity, even which way to drive home, which restaurant to eat at and helping me with thousands of details in my life. God speaks to me every day; the more I listen to his voice, the more he speaks to me. And everything he has ever told me has been in my own best interests.

When God calls, it is because he wants to affirm who you really are, whom he created you to be. He wants to work with you, to mentor you so that you will reach your highest potential. He calls us in our souls where his Indwelling Spirit dwells, so that each person’s soul can come forward in each one of our lives; eventually each person’s ego would come under the direction of his/her soul. Then each of us will be working in close partnership with the Lord to help bring in the kingdom of God here on this earth each in our own unique way.

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Questions to ponder over the week: What have you done in the past and what are you doing now with what God whispers to you? How would you describe the experience of doing what he suggests? Where did it take you? And now where is God’s voice taking you?

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Blessings for the week: May we be the people of God who trust him in all things. Who follow him always. Who dedicate our lives to him.

News from By the Waters:
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