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“Love liberates!”
~Dr. Maya Angelou
“An unexamined life
is not worth living.”
~Plato
Both of these quotes resonate with me deeply, but I’ll start
with the second one from Plato, because it’s truly one of the guiding posts of
my life. I could have also quoted ‘Auntie O’ (Oprah), in saying “your life is
always speaking to you,” because I also believe that life/the Universe/GOD is
an ever-present voice, reflecting to you what you most desperately need to know
in and for the present moment. So, if you simply listen to what your life is
saying, you’ll clearly hear the voice of God.
By listening, I mean we must pay attention to what’s
happening around us, particularly when something out of the ordinary occurs.
And once we notice that occurrence, we mustn’t get caught up in the rat race of
life and simply brush it aside, but rather spend some time doing what Plato
encourages….actually examining our life, asking ourselves the hard questions of
why, how, and what does that mean?
This is actually something I do daily, as I attempt to live
into my highest values and the greatest, most authentic expression of who I am.
Having said that, this weekend offered me an excellent opportunity to examine
my life and to hear what lesson it was trying to teach. As I write this, it’s
Sunday evening, but on both Friday and Saturday I had conversations that took
me aback and made me really reflect.
I would like to go into greater detail (because if you’ve
read my blog with any regularity you know I believe in transparency) but because
the conversations involved two people that many of my readers may know (or at
least know of) I won’t offer the details but I’ll simply say the overall
feeling of the conversations were not positive and both left me feeling anxious
and sad.
To make a long story short, let me simply say that I would
not consider myself a confrontational person, and as a pretty laid back guy I
don’t regularly “have words” with persons, especially those that I care about,
so each conversation left me rattled me. BUT GOD……. Watch this 1, 2, 3 knockout!
-After the second conversation (one was Friday, the other
occurred Saturday) I felt the need to “examine” my life and while doing so it
became clear to me that there seemed to be one element that both conversations
shared . As a result of each conversation and the things the other persons said
to me during them, I recognized the predominate feeling felt by me was guilt. PUNCH ONE!
-As I briefly shared these conversations with the Sunday
School Class that I teach…one lady interrupted me and said unequivocally, “Ray,
you haven’t forgiven yourself…you have to learn to forgive yourself .” PUNCH
TWO.
-When I left that church and went to pick up my son from
another church (he had to sing in the children’s choir there) I caught the end
of the pastor’s sermon during which he walked to my section, looked straight in
my direction and said, “God says there is someone in this section on my left who is struggling with forgiving
themselves. God says you must forgive yourself to free yourself from the past
so that you can receive what God has for your future!” PUNCH THREE!!!!
Can the universe communicate to me any clearer?!!! And to be
honest, I almost missed it. When the pastor said that, briefly I thought…wow,
what a powerful word for someone and then I immediately (thank GOD) said, hey,
that’s for me!
To prevent this post from being too long, I’ll stop here for
now but I wanted to at least share this testimony with you. I’ll update you
later this week because I plan to spend some time praying and meditating on
forgiveness of self. I believe, as those of us who grew up in church can
attest, religion has done a good job teaching us guilt and confession and
repentance but has not taught us what it really means to walk in redemption, forgiveness
and grace.
These conversations left me troubled because both persons
reached back years and threw some element of the past in my face. Again, not to
go into detail because I want to protect their privacy, but the bottom line is this:
whatever whomever says to us about what may or may not be true about the
past…the fact remains, it’s the past
for a reason!
In order for us to move forward in all of the greatness the
future holds…we must forgive ourselves into health and wholeness! As Maya
reminds us, love liberates…even when (and especially when) that love is
directed towards ourselves. We must love ourselves completely, unapologetically, and without condition.
For, if we love ourselves, we will liberate ourselves into emotional and
spiritual health.
It’s been awhile since I’ve blogged regularly so please
pardon me if I’m a little rusty, but I didn’t want the day to pass without my
sharing this with you. I have a few more things to say on this topic so stay
tuned (especially I share what is shown to me through this meditation
assignment). I pray that as I learn to wholly forgive myself, that I can share
some insight that might help you completely do the same. In the meantime,
please remember….
This
is not the end of our story. Our best days are not behind us; they are ahead of us. Every morning
offers a new mercy….don’t waste yours, reach out and grab it , so you’ll be
ready to receive all of the #bigthingscoming.
NOTE: If you’re new to the site it might be helpful to read
the first (introductory) post. Also, feel free to post your questions or
comments here and you can always reach out to me on Twitter @raycjordan using
the hash tag #bigthingscoming.
(Copyright,
2014, Ray Jordan)
