Day 68: A Deal with God

It was Day 10 of the project, June 14, 2023, and I was getting ready to work out in the gym.  While I was sitting on one of the benches lacing my shoe and getting ready to hop on the treadmill, out of nowhere came a song from the 80's by Kate Bush.  The experience of "hearing" this song was not like you hear other things externally.  It was as if the music and the words started playing inside my consciousness like thoughts would, and it so clearly came out of nowhere that I knew it had to be a message.  I didn't even know it was by Kate Bush; I only found that out by searching the words of the lyrics that I could make out while I was trying to listen to it.  A Course In Miracles refers to this kind of experience as the work of the Holy Spirit and defines a miracle as a "shift in perception".   By that definition, it certainly was a miracle as the experience yielded a complete shift in perception for me.  

 

After I had listened to the entire song while reading the lyrics to ascertain the message, I found myself completely speechless.  It was one of the first big song experiences I have had while I have been participating in this project, and it was absolutely mind blowing because I had never listened to the lyrics of that song before!  Moments later, in the silence, I heard the following:  "Heaven's perspective on you:  Running up that Hill.  Shame and Jealousy."  I naturally had to listen to the song again, and when I did, it resonated.  The shame and the jealousy that they were referring to, though, was completely unconscious until it was mentioned.  Once it was, I could see that it was true.  And I know the nature of LOVE (aka Heaven) well enough to know that it was brought to my attention so that it could be healed and shifted...

When I first began this project a couple months ago, I was experiencing a tremendous amount of shame about everything that I have gone through--the jails, the homelessness, the 5150's, and the having to start over again, but I was so busy putting one foot in front of the other that it was not something that I was really all that conscious of.  I can also see now in retrospect that I was jealous of the average person--the person who could get up every day, get in their car and go to their job; the person who could have a productive day just doing what they do for a living; someone who knew their place in the world. It was an extraordinary experience to have that shown to me through a mystical experience and to have it be so accurate. 

So much has transpired in the close to two months since that experience.  As I mentioned before, right around Day 23, I was directed to the Magic by Rhonda Byrne and the Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren and have been listening to them both almost every day since.  I just completed the Magic last week, and I am so grateful that I completed it.   Ironically, it's all about gratitude, and I have to say that it truly did change my life and really helped me to shift some of the experience I've been talking about above.  At the beginning of the program, Rhonda points out that you can either count your blessings or you can focus on what's wrong in your life but whichever one you do, you are going to get more of it.  That was all I needed to hear.  I count my blessings daily now as part of my regular practice usually right after meditation and prayer.  I can say honestly now that as simple as it sounds, a regular gratitude practice is truly life-changing.  

I'm not in that place today that I described above.  I can look back and see how lost I was when I began this project, and I am so very grateful to be where I am today.   By the Grace of God, literally, I am found, and while not that much has shifted in the outer realm yet, inwardly, I am a different person.  I sure do smile a lot these days, and I am happy most of the time.  Often, there isn't even a reason for it; there's just an inner joy present that I haven't experienced before.  And it's no secret why.  I have God today, and I know it's just a matter of time before the outer world shifts to match my inner reality.  

It's been a conglomerate of things that has brought about this change that I am experiencing where I am, once again, so happy and grateful to be me.  It's been the miracles that I have witnessed almost on a daily basis since the project's inception.  It's been the practice itself:  the prayer, the gratitude work, the meditation, the visualization.  It's been the gradual revelation of my purpose in the world--one stitch of guidance at a time.  It's been the confidence and the certainty of the teachers I have been listening to:  Gary Renard, Rhonda Byrne, Rev. Michael Bernard Beckwith, Joe Dispenza and others.  It's been the book list and watching it unfold in the silence, one title at a time, with approximately 110 titles on it at this point.  But to sum it up, what it's really been, is a new found relationship with God and the resulting mystical experiences which have been both awe-inspiring and nothing short of Divine Intervention.  

As I have also mentioned, I have been listening to the Disappearance of the Universe by Gary Renard which is based on A Course in Miracles.  Part of the setup of the book is that the author was visited approximately 14 times by two Ascended Masters, "enlightened beings whom many in the esoteric field believe have evolved beyond the need to reincarnate on earth and now act from a higher plane of existence to assist humans in their movement toward enlightenment and guide the race in its destined evolution." (Encyclopedia.com)  One of them, Pursah, told the author that she was the reincarnation of St. Thomas, who was also called Doubting Thomas and was one of the disciples of Jesus.  Well, some time in the last week, while I was getting ready for the day, I heard very clearly the word, "Didymus".  Being that I have never heard the word before, I fully expected that nothing would come up when I searched it, but when I did, I found that "Didymus" was another name for Doubting Thomas and that it was specifically his surname:  Thomas Didymus.  (Just one more adventure into the miraculous.)

This morning I woke up to another song gently playing in my consciousness just moments after I opened my eyes.  A big part of the guidance that I have received over the last 90 something days has been encouragement to stay the course and to make sure that I follow through on all the things that I have committed to within and around the project.  I have been told more than once that I am being given a second chance at life.  When I listened to this song, I was blown away by the message one more time...

Have a beautiful week......

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Kate Bush, "Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God)"

Hounds of Love, EMI Records, 1985

Olivia Newton John, "Twist of Fate"

Two of a Kind Soundtrack, MCA, 1983