This summer, a friend of mine and I went hiking at a state park and ventured onto a trail that didn’t seem to have had many visitors, at least not lately. Cobwebs were
plentiful, some more visible than others, but definitely no fun walking through.
Even though Hubby and I hike our land three to four times a week, I carry a long, skinny stick to wave down cobwebs over the path as I
walk, because they seem to rebuild overnight. The ones you don’t see coming are the worst! I love doing this for my hubby so he doesn't have to fight unexpected webs.
So with my friend, I grabbed a stick and did the same
thing, clearing the way for us as we went. I felt happy to do this “service” for my friend. I told her it's a perfect visual for both of us to carry each day, regarding spiritual care and favor.
Imagine for just a
moment that every day, someone's going before us to prepare the way and minimize difficulties, so that we don't even know they existed.
What a great idea to ponder when it comes to our gratitude practice, too.
I wonder how much is being cleared to make life easier for us that we don’t even know about? We can’t prove it, but we can choose to believe this is happening for us and be grateful.
In Finding the Gift on
March 15, Someone’s Got My Back, I wrote about a similar situation while on vacation, where the grounds crew was bagging and removing all the seaweed from the beach early in the morning, long before most resort guests showed up. They probably thought the beach never had any seaweed, but that wasn't true. It's just that they never saw it.
What if things like this are happening for us all the time, naturally and supernaturally? We don't have to believe this is true, for it to be true.
Faith is belief in things we cannot see—it’s a choice. Faith isn’t based on logic. We tell ourselves bad stories all the time. Why not believe in some good ones also?
I was a God-hater for two decades, starting as an adolescent, after a short but powerful experience of religious abuse. The recovery practices that eventually helped me overcome my eating disorder invited spiritual healing as well.
I was told to define a God I could believe in, one with attributes I wanted like: loving, kind, provisional, way-making, favor-delivering, guiding, delivering a gentle nudge when I'm going in the wrong direction—basically everything a loving parent would be. Another practice had me write a help-wanted ad for God, describing all the duties of the job.
After several of years of choosing again and again to believe in the God of my own making, I was able to heal my God-wounds and embrace the spiritual growth and fruit that I've seen since then.
We are spiritual beings and we must feed our spirits. (Some people tend to use the words spirit and religion interchangeably, but please know they are not the same. You can read January 8 in Finding the Gift, Tuning into Your Spirit, for my definition of spirit.)
In looking back, I can see that even during my God-hating years, the God I believe in today was fighting for me, was my advocate, my way-maker, my healer. Hindsight has shown me there were also many angels placed along my path, even in the absence of my belief.
Is this supernatural? I think so. If we could see it, or could come up with a logical explanation every time we encounter what some might call a “God thing,” it might be super, but it would also be natural, not something that
requires faith.
I’ve made peace with the God of my childhood, but the discipline of faith is an on-going muscle to be worked out.
My sister has lived as an atheist as a result of our experiences around bad religion. But she has confessed that it gets really hard believing that everything is up to her.
If you still struggle with believing in anything, but wish you could, may I encourage you to just give it a shot, again? Look at it as an experiment? Let yourself imagine that favorable things are already happening for you, daily.
For the skeptic in us all, what have we got to lose by starting each morning believing that some obstacles have already been cleared out of our day? The funny thing is the more I believe this, the more gifts I tend to receive. I become expectant of good things, and that's often what I find.
For today, I hope you'll join me in this meditation on goodness happening for us behind the scenes. Let’s say thanks for all the gifts, known and unknown.
