I have insomnia. I feel this sensation in my chest that feels like fear. I feel like someone is reaching right into my chest under the breastbone grabbing everything inside of me and squeezing as hard as they can. The tight sensation hurts so much that my heart races a little, not enough to be medically worrisome, just enough to be anxiety. I also feel a need to cry, but I feel like in the crying game, my body is constipated. The need to cry is there, but the ability to breakdown doesn’t come. I’ve had migraines on and off for days now, too.
I know that I am going through one of those difficult periods that I go through. I know because I wrote earlier that when it happens, God tells me to just let it flow. Don’t fight life, embrace it. I understand. However, I’m human. Knowing and understanding sometimes isn’t enough. In fact, because I’m human no amount of growth or self-actualization is enough.
Life has it’s ups and downs. I can’t have the ups without the downs. I actually don’t want to have the ups without the downs. It’s just that when I have my highs, I don’t worry about getting through it. Highs aren’t difficult. When I have my lows though, I feel so tired and constipated. I worry that I won’t be strong enough to get through it. And I know, I should have enough faith in God to know I’ll be fine, but I realize that although my faith in God is strong, my faith in myself isn’t. I’ve never doubted God once, but me, that’s a different story. I doubt myself all the time. I want and need to believe, but I know that I’m human. I’ve lived with myself too long. I know that I will always struggle because life isn’t perfect.
My husband and I were watching a reality show. One of the participants always acted positive and like everything was great. Then, we saw this one confessional clip. She cried and showed vulnerability. She said she was having a difficult time and didn’t know if she could make it. After I saw that clip, I looked at that woman differently. First, I didn’t like how she wouldn’t show her weakness because she didn’t want to be vulnerable. I believe that it takes strength and courage to be vulnerable. Second, her vulnerability showed that even the most confident and optimistic person struggles.
We are all human. The greatest lie that religion teaches is that you make a commitment to believe in that religion and after that, everything in your life will be wonderful. That’s not how life works. It’s a lie. God doesn’t promise that belief will bring eternal happiness. God promises that belief will establish a relationship with Him and that I’ll experience His love.
A little while ago, I think about a month ago, I remembered having this dream where I found something, a set of instructions, an algorithm, or a formula. When I used it, I understood the universe better and then I knew everything would be okay. Just the thought of that dream made me feel good inside and gave me an overwhelming feeling of peace. I have been wanting to recapture that feeling, but it seems a little dumb to try to find a feeling of a dream. If the dream is a premonition, then it will come in God’s time. However, in the meantime, I think there’s a lesson in this situation.
That feeling wasn’t about life being perfect. It wasn’t about feeling good for the rest of my life or the rest of eternity. That feeling was about experiencing peace. The only way that I know to really feel peace is through God. When I’m anxious, I feel that horrible tightness in my chest. When I feel the most connected to God, to others, and to the universe that tightness goes away, and I feel this amazing sense of peace in my body. I feel like I have a ball of light and energy inside of my chest and it radiates out pass my body into the rest of the world. I feel connected to everyone and everything. And there’s a small part of me that can believe, everything is going to be okay.
God doesn’t promise that life will be wonderful. My first memory of God never had anything to do with Heaven or a perfect life. It was only that God is. He is. That’s all. His existence gives me peace. His love for me fills me up when I am in pain and when I feel anxious.
Lately, I have been writing about how I believe that we all have this connection to one another and if we just would open our hearts, we could see how we are all part of one life force. I don’t know how our Creator Deity fits into that, but I know that God is everywhere. He is within everything and everyone.
I had this idea. I don’t know if it is right or not, but I need to write it. So, in movies lately there’s this cliché: aliens invade Earth. They are an overwhelming force of thousands if not hundreds of thousands. Then, humans find that they are all connected and if they kill the leader, the rest will die or give up. So, they form a plan to do this. They kill the leader. The rest of the aliens die or go away and Earth is saved.
I think it is based on the way bees behave. If you kill the Queen, the hive will die. What if we are all connected by our life force that has some kind of spiritual component as well? And what if that spiritual component includes a connection to God whether we realize it or not? And finally, if God could be destroyed and no longer existed, then we would all die too? I know it seems crazy, but it’s in our stories. It is in nature. Maybe God is giving us a clue.
I just know that whenever I can tap into my connection with God, my entire body feels different. I have a hunch that it means something.
My faith saved me. May God’s peace reside in all of our hearts.
