The past three months have been eye opening for me. They have been revealing for me and most importantly they have been empowering for me. I have been since August taking a retreat one weekend a month about creating a life that matters. Some might think well you have a life that matters, you have your kids, your family, your friends but I wanted to create a life that matters not only for God but for me to rediscover myself.
So let me begin here with the first session of CLM Rediscovering a Relationship with the Sacred. In this weekend I learned so much of who God is! Not only the God we read about in the Bible and do not get me wrong that is an amazing God but it is not always seen as a personal God. I rediscovered a relationship with my God. The God that not only spoke the world into existence but spoke me into existence as well. A God that cares about me, my needs, my wants, my desires, my fears, my faults, my passions and even my creativity. The God I had learned about in Sunday School growing up did amazing things in the time of the Bible but I had not seen those miracles in the here and now. Or so I thought! The God I learned about in college undergoing my ministry degree was a God who is loving but also wrathful. I had experienced God's miracles in my life and through healings but I can be honest and say that while I claimed him as my God I never truly understood what that meant until that faithful weekend in August. I went in to the sanctuary not knowing what to expect. I see we have assigned seating and I am in a group with three other men. Men who stole my heart with their stories and stories that I will never forget. I spent that weekend moving my seat and getting to know the people that I attended church with a little bit better and they getting to know me a bit better as well. But I really got to know MY God! The God I spoke about earlier. The God who is mother, father, mentor, friend to me! The God who cares about me as much as he cared about the world he created. The God who cherishes a relationship with me.
The second weekend in September was rediscovering a relationship with the self. Your-self. The one the scared wants to have a relationship with. I struggled here. I am not going to lie. Getting in touch with your inner self and reflecting on who you really are is not easy but I have to say it was worth it. I learned about my inner strength that was something I could not see in myself and these amazing people helped me discovered it. So I realize I have not told you who these people are and well I am not disclosing any names for sake of privacy but I will describe them, my new amazing friends and family of choice to you.
1. Is my new friend who is so intelligent, both book smart and cultural smart.
2. Is my new friend who is so beautiful in whatever skin he chooses to show.
3. Is my new friend who inspires me through his faith and wisdom in God.
4. Is my new friend who shows the most hospitality to all he meets.
5. Is my new friend who brings about such harmony and peace to everyone around her.
6. Is my new friend who has a heart of gold and takes care of family and animals with a selfless love.
7. Is my new friend who is a rock star explorer and who I want to be when I finally grow up.
8. Is my new friend who has taught me researching and reading can make you learn so much new interesting things.
9. Is my new friend who teaches me love, complete unconditional love and support through a listening ear.
10. Is my new friend who teaches me beauty can bring about healing always.
11. Is my new friend who teaches me that to love others and love yourself is what makes this journey worthwhile.
12. Is my new friend who teaches me that a passion to work for God is such a beautiful passion to have.
13. Is my new friend who teaches me that even through the trials and heartbreak God can bring peace.
14. Is my new friend who teaches me we are all colors in this beautiful rainbow world and magic is everywhere.
15. Is my new friend who teaches me that a love for pictures can preserve a lifetime of memories and who teaches the class with knowledge and wisdom.
16. Is my new friend who teaches me that even the Pastor can learn alongside with us while inspiring us to be the best we can be in our passion, our selves and with the sacred.
The third weekend just ended today. Oh my Lord was it beautiful but difficult all at the same time. We discovered our relationship with our passion. In this weekend we delved deep into our lives. We remembered the good, the bad and the ugly and readers there is a whole lot of the uglies in my life but I had to be authentic with myself and delve into it to see who I am meant to be. In this weekend I brought up past hurts, abuse, illnesses and loss but I also remembered the beauty of my children, rediscovering my first true love in singing, remembering when I first fell in love with Christ and even when I found my true authentic self, believe it or not it is not when everyone thinks it is.... PLOT TWIST!!! But while lots of tears were shed and past hurts were surfaced I learned through it all that what I would consider as rough times or valleys in my past God never let me down. You see my life through it all has been like a roller coaster with ups and downs. God has been the pull bar. He has been there all along. Sometimes I clutched onto God/the pull bar for dear life while other times I went through life with my hands up in the air screaming wooooo!!!!!! But God was always there holding onto me and never letting me go.
CLM has been empowering for me, transformative, inspiring and has created in me a life that matters. This was my favorite picture of the whole event because its true if you want to see a woman truly smile offer her Chocolate:
