Spiritual Awakening

To be honest, I have had several spiritual awakenings over the course of my lifetime. I feel, today, that my faith is pretty unshakable because of them.

I really don't believe that God is a perfect being.... Perhaps S/He is more perfect then we are, but God does make mistakes..... There are so many illnesses, genetic and otherwise. Why would a perfect being create so much painful imperfection? That was one of my awakenings, that perhaps God/dess was not perfect after all. Why would someone who was perfect create a devil, or marijuana for that matter? It eases my mind to know that all the illness, and evil in this world are the result of honest mistakes. It makes the fact that God/dess created the world and all the life in it more amazing to me. God/dess CAN heal. That is amazing. I am a firm believer that we only move on when we die, too.

I did the steps initially out of order. I couldn't remember them all and did not have any literature. Certainly, I did not want to walk into a meeting as scared and nutty as I felt. My first step was step three. I turned over my will to God first thing. I was not able to consistently admit that I had an addiction problem, and I didn't have the faith that God/dess could relieve my insanity. But I figured it couldn't hurt to turn my will over to a force for good. Shortly thereafter I lost my home and began to travel around.... I did the fourth step the best way I knew how -- in my head.... But I'd get confused and didn't realize that wasn't the right way to do it at the time. Then I did step 11 -- and began talking to and praying to God -- especially about child molesters. I tried to stop people from molesting children throughout my travels, but as I was very psychotic the whole time -- I ended up making quite the fool out of myself. I still believe that it is part of God's will for me to speak out against such things.

I ended up committing a serious crime that I thought God had told me to do. My recovery really began then. I then spent four and a half years locked up. It was during this time that I did step 2. I began to believe sanity was a possibility and that God had led me to it.

I did not do all the steps and they certainly were not in order before I had my recovery orientated spiritual awakening. It was when I received a book mark from the Christians in jail that read "God is Love" That was when so many things began to really make sense.

I had had spiritual awakenings before. When I was young I saw Jesus' face in the tree branches. It scared the crap out of me. I never was quite able to make peace with the Christian church though. They seemed obsessed with the concept of hell and who was going there. They quoted a lot of Paul's words and said they were God's word.... (I never did believe that and still don't)

I believed in the Goddess after I grew up. I saw Her a lot in my head. She supported me and answered various prayers. I could not, for a long while, stand the idea that God was a man.

While I was insane, I had several experiences. I saw angels when I was on the road and at bus stations -- they were made of light. When I was still in my home in Bellingham, I felt breath on the top of my head. I remember once I was laying on the couch and I felt a fine mist of water on my face and felt Jesus there. It had never occurred to me before that God was love however. My concept of Spirit was of this nebulous undefined kind of entity that maybe was a little out of touch with humanity. I did not believe that God was like a human -- and stopped believing that we were created in God's image some time ago. I went through many stages of belief and disbelief that Jesus existed. Shortly after I lost an aunt to cancer however -- I lost most of my faith and then again saw Jesus' face in the trees and clouds.

Another spiritual awakening for me was when I realized that God was not going to destroy me as I had His "book" I had taken out all the pages of Paul's words and burned them. I had blacked out Peter's words. I edited other parts of the Bible. And here I am, I lived to tell about it. That's when I knew -- as direly afraid as I was after I did that, and equally convinced it was the right thing to do -- that God was a very forgiving individual.

I try to love myself to the best of my ability. That's what God is to me: love. I love most people too. Step 12 tells me that it is okay to love other addicts.... That it is okay to confront them about using drugs or alcohol. That it is okay to lay down the boundaries that I won't put up with using around me. I get closer to Spirit when I love freely. That means loving myself as well (it's very hard to truly love another when we don't love ourselves) I haven't found many opportunities to 12th step others, but I know that the Spirit will lead me to that. To me loving is a way of life. It is bigger then recovery and larger then life. There are many ways to serve other people, and it will make one feel better. After all, wasn't feeling better what we were after all along.

I guess part of my message is that we have no hard/fast laws in recovery including doing the steps in order. I did eventually do the steps in order, and they were relatively easy for me after I had found God. If we reach out to God to find the solution to our insanity and addiction, we will eventually find our way. Love is everywhere -- and my God is love -- just like the bookmark said. Love makes the world go round.... It's so hard to communicate all the proof that God is love, and I don't want to proselytize. (I'm technically Christopagan.) I just know that Jesus is okay with my nature loving, pagan ways as well as believing in Him. If Jesus is okay with me, I should be okay with me.

Like it says in the Basic Text "A spiritual awakening is an ongoing process. We experience a wider view of reality as we grow spiritually. An opening of our minds to new spiritual and physical experiences is the key to better awareness. As we grow spiritually we become attuned to our feelings and our purpose in life." chapter 10, p 101. I am always growing.... Love is a journey not a destination. As I grow, I realize that I have much to learn about loving yet.