Why I live from a place of faith…

In my early years I never went to church. I didn’t have a relationship with God. I didn’t have expectations of what that was like. I had friends that went to church. I wanted to go, and did at times, but none of it really made sense to me.

Fast forward, in my early adult years, I went through a period of time stuck in hard drug use. Meanwhile, I trying to remain a functioning person in society, going to college and working. In the early part of those years, local Jehovah Witnesses would show up at our door offering magazines about God. Now, I didn’t really understand it, but there was a feeling of needing help at that time in my life and something called to me.

I didn’t pursue it other than reading the magazines, but it did continue to open up something inside me. Sometime during that period of my life, I recall a moment when I heard in my mind, “it’s okay, you’ll get through this, you are meant for more”. Its felt like the voice of an angel reminding me to not give up on finding my way to sobriety. You see I fought for years to clean up. It wasn’t until I was rejected by a friend for not getting drugs one day that I was finally able to stay quit.

I’ve never thought about it before, but rejection from others has been a huge fear in my life, and a source of suffering, but this was a moment it actually saved me. What a dichotomy!

Years went by and I didn’t really think about God again, choosing friend circles more in the atheist realm. Moments of being in churches became awkward and uncertain. I often felt like an outsider, feeling somewhat rejected by God, but perhaps rejecting God myself.

Eventually as I stepped onto my healing journey, I dove into experiences of yoga and meditation, opening up to awareness of a spiritual realm, that wasn’t particularly related to God, but a world I longed to understand and connect with.

Watching my father fight brain cancer, and losing him at age 33 had a big impact on me looking at my relationship with faith, Spirit, perceptions and beliefs.

As I’ve been walking through my 40’s, I’ve turned toward faith for support going deeper into my healing and personal work. I’ve come to realize that faith lays within us. Whether through God or not, we can access faith in some way. When we accept that the Universe/God/Spirit or something greater than ourselves wants the best for us and is helping us learn what we need to learn in this lifetime, the struggles aren’t so immobilizing.

Over the years I’ve come into deeper spiritual practices with my heart and soul and in doing so have found a grounded sense of peace, love, and unconditional acceptance in myself and life. I commune with Spirit daily in meditation and prayer, building my relationship with faith and this non-ordinary reality.

Stresses still arise, but they don’t grab me like they used to. I remember that emotions are part of our human experience and help us stay in alignment with what matters to us individually and collectively. “This too shall pass.” and “All is well” come to mind. I come back to my heart, my trust in the unfolding of my life, take a deep breath and keep going.

I don’t believe we need churches to live in faith. I’m not adverse, I do like visiting them now for the beauty and grace they behold, but there’s a lot of dogma and sigma attached to them that needs healing. Instead, I look to community and like-hearted friendships for connection and support, for this is where I believe heart connections link us into a greater web of existence, and together we can support one another to face whatever comes our way.

This way, we can look within for answers, look above for support, and look around us for connection. All dimensions guiding us to live our best life, whole-heartedly and faithfully with trust, grace, and compassionate understanding.

What is your relationship with faith?