Broken Open

My desire is to live a real life. My aspiration is to live with my heart wide open. My resolve is that both can be painful.

My BIG “broken open” experienced happened 10 years ago with the death of my father. I could have never understood, then, what would prove to be the beginning of a new way of life for me. My dad and I had a....tough relationship, that unfortunately never got resolved before his passing of cancer. You know those happy endings that you see on the television or in movies??? the ones where love is professed from the death bed and the goodbyes are handled so eloquently? Well that was not so for me and my dad when he past.

In fact I have to tell you for about a year I could not watch those scenes without leaving the room. I would think, through hot tears,”what a load of #%*@, that is not how it happens! there are not always happy endings!”.....well not the way you envision happy endings to be anyways.

As painful as this time was, it would prove to be the beginning of the rest of my life. Looking back I can see that for me it was a time of painful rebirth, a time of being broken open. I had measured myself by how I thought my dad seen me and now with him gone I would have to be stripped down of those thoughts and open up to new possibilities of who I really was and more importantly, who I wanted to be.

Thus my “broken open “ process began and the layers began to slowly get peeled back. Sometime this was a conscious process and sometimes, by the grace of God, things were put in my path to help me along the way. It only is now that I recognize the magnitude of all that has brought me to this place of freedom. And in freedom I do not mean a life of pain free, struggle free, problem free living. What I mean is living in the freedom of my Creators love, living in the freedom of realizing that life is so much more than what we see and what we are shown.

 Living in the freedom of knowing that what we do here matters, and love is really all we need. These thing were written on my heart when I was created, they were sewn into my DNA, stitched into my thoughts and woven into my soul. I just had to bring them to life. I had to be awaken to the truth that was already inside of me.

When I was broken open I heard God’s voice for the first time. He/She told me, “Everything is going to be alright, I am going to take care of everything. You don’t have to do anything, anymore.”

I always thought that I had to fix things. I always thought that I was fully responsible for everything. I was a child when I began to think these things and they followed me into my “adult” life. Well how can anyone be responsible for all things???!!! Now I see the ...well...lets be honest, the craziness of that way of thinking. Now I understand the burden I felt, most of my life...whoa!

But when I decided to allow myself to start a new journey, a new life old ways started to slowly be replaced with new thoughts and new truths. I began to recognize the lys that were in my life and see them in a way of not blaming anyone for them, but just seeing them for what they were...lys that were blocking my view, lys that were stealing my joy, lys that where holding me back from living a full life.

I remember when I was a few years into this journey. We were camping and I was starting a stage of looking to literature for guidance and truth. I was reading a book called “Captivating” at the time. A book about unveiling the secrets of a woman's soul.....

I had a dream in which I was hanging in the sky with God and one of my close girlfriends.

We were over the ocean looking down on a small forested island. There was a great peace and calmness as we looked down. When I looked up at God and my girlfriend my chest began to hurt and I clutched at it, saying to God,” My heart, it hurts so much.” and God said to me, “That’s because I am pealing back the layers.” When I woke up my chest still hurt.

Thinking about that still brings up such emotions. I am moved deeply by the changes that have happened in my life. I realize now, that it is a choice. My spiritual belief challenges me to choose a life of freedom that has been given to me freely, and then bought for me to prove the love of a Creator who wants nothing more than to have a relationship with me.

I am no different then anyone else. I have nothing special that makes me stronger or more capable.

We were all marked by God’s love when we were created, the choice is ours whether we are going to trust that love.

Having a spiritual life, having God , a higher power, Allah, whatever you want to call it, guiding you, being your beacon in what can be a dark world; does not mean that there is no longer dark times, or sadness and hardship. What it does mean, however, is that you have somewhere to go, you do not do it along, there are possibilities and there are answers.

I now look at life in a way were I am not always trying to avoid troubles. I now put my energy in the now and say, “Ok life, what do you have for me today? How are you going to grow me today?”

So today life grew me with an email. An email that was sent to my niece in Alberta, (another province) via Facebook from a friend of The Rock Star (my 15 year old son). He had sent it to her because she was the only on Rock Star’s face book page that had the last name as him. He wanted her to know that the Rock Star was hanging around with kids that were questionable and doing questionable things.

This friend was concerned and had tried to talk to The Rock Star but felt that he had not heard so he was wondering if my niece would kindly pass this info on to the Rock Stars parents so they could deal with the situation....

(I am changing my view of Facebook...though that was not the life lesson here....lol)

So my niece in turn told her dad, my brother, who in turn gave us a call yesterday. Lots of emotion goes through a mothers body in these moments.....and as those emotions were going through my body I told myself, “ You are living a real life.”

This one email brought so many opportunities of love, open hearts, and community..things that are key to a spiritual life. Immediately this brought The Horticulturalist and me together. How are we going to deal with this, what do we know about The Rock Star, how does this make us feel, where is God in all this....then I have the heart to heart with my brother, he gives great big brother guidance and advice, we talk to our neighbors “Can you watch The Scientist while we deal with this?” “Of course, we love The Rock Star, here are our prayers, here is our guidance...please be there for us when we are at this stage...” Tears are shed, I love the Rock star, we love the Rock Star...who DOESN’T love The Rock Star????

The Rock Star comes home from school....open conversation, teaching, realizing, frustration, love concern, doubt, lys, half truths, the truth, prayer, getting the the heart of the matter, anger, disappointment, unconditional love, acceptance, confusion, embarrassment, wonder.....

These are some of the things that can come out of that sort of situation...a real life situation.

And what about that friend, caring so much to go and take the time to do that... The Rock Star was touched by that. Lots to learn in the teenage world, lots to learn in the parents of the teenage world...it’s all real life, in a real world , with real problems and above all REAL LOVE!

Things are okay here.

Like I said to The Rock Star, “Someone/Something above is looking out for you...someone is trying to keep you safe...now it is your choice as to what you are going to do with all you have learnt today.”

This is one of many bumps in the road, but for now, in this moment I am peace filled in the knowledge that we did not face this alone.

“When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers. they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fires, you will not be burned; the flames will not send you ablaze.” Isaiah 43:2&3...love notes from God via The Bible (thanks Dee)

"Find comfort in pain." -James Blunt messages from God via main-stream music