Welcome to my newest personal blog "Illuminated From Within" where I will be posting my musings and prose works as I journey down the path of Enlightenment and Atonement.

Almost four years ago I was forced by the courts to give full custody of my son to his father, whom I had met while in Korea serving in the U.S. Air Force. I had retained full custody from his birth until he was five years old, and the bond I have with my child transcends most child-parent relationships as can happen when you are a single parent determined to treat their child far differently than you were treated as a child and to respect them in ways you never experienced from your parents. Therefore, the abrupt loss of my child sent me spiraling in the depths of a depression greater than anything I had ever known previously. My world collapsed in upon itself and I realized that I could not shoulder the spectrum of my misery alone. I needed someone to lean on, to find solace in beyond the comforts and solace that any human being could provide.

I turned to God, and my journey began. Misconceptions long held dissipated in the face of such Divine Love, and such misconceptions still continue to fall away as God, in His Infinite Wisdom and Love, sees my efforts at understanding His Truth and provides the corporeal tools necessary for such learning.

The following is a posting from another of my blogs (now well out of primary usage) from July 13, 2010. It marks the beginning of my contemplation and search for greater meaning. I have come quite a distance, both in time and in personal growth, since the original writing and posting, and I hope to continue sharing these musings as they occur to me for in Healing myself I am contributing the Healing and Atonement of all my brethren.

July 13, 2010
About two weeks ago we heard a man at our church speak about the recent loss of his mother and what he deemed what God's purpose in it, especially for him. He spoke about being overwhelmed with emotions he wanted nothing but to run from, to turn away from and put aside and not feel but he realized that grief is something that never goes away. You cannot hide from it. It is like God - inescapable. The comparison struck me as poignant and utterly meaningful in our personal situation. 
I've spent a lot of time thinking about his words and how God directed him to turn into those feelings, to embrace them and through them let God fill the void his mother's passing had left. He found that once he embraced the emotions they were easier to process and actually learned a great deal about his own inner strength and what God means to him. 
I have always run from that which frightens me. I've always turned away from the emotions I have not wanted to mentally deal with. His words made me realize that in avoiding my fear I have been avoiding the lessons that God has to teach me. When you give yourself totally to God and trust in his Will, there can be no fear. There can only be a deepening of spirit and faith, of trust in Him and all that you have no control over. There is no such thing as "mortal control" as far I can determine. It is all in God's time and we are but to trust in his plans for us. Impatience, doubt, anger, fear... all mortal trappings of the soul. God gave us the ability to emote so that we can learn from our experiences, not avoid them. I now understand the verse "if ye have faith of the size of a mustard seed ye shall move mountains" (I paraphrase as I've never been good at memorizing verses). It implies a total surrender to those emotions that threaten to obliterate all sense and connection with the Divine Plan as only surrender can bring you through to the other side. Did Jesus run from the Romans? No. He went willingly to them, bidding his servant to betray him upon in the grove. If Jesus went willingly into and faced his fear and trusted implicitly in his Lord's purpose for him, how can I not do the same? 
I've battled this thought process from every logical angle I can think of but I cannot find fault. I was once inclined to believe that in trusting in the Lord that I am simply finding another way to avoid my disliked emotions but I am now in full awareness of that error in thinking. Is trust in God being a lofty idealist? No. Does it take the weight from my shoulders so that I stress less? Yes. Turning into trust of the unseen and unfelt was ever so difficult until I realized that I have nothing to fear but my own insecurities and the problems they bring about when I deliberately avoid them. One can only be made whole by the journey itself, not in avoiding taking that first step. At the risk of quoting the secular while discussing the spiritual, Alanis Morrisette put it beautifully as "The only way out is through."

In closing, "To those leaning on the sustaining infinite, to-day is big with blessings. The wakeful shepherd beholds the first faint morning beams, ere cometh the full radiance of a risen day. So shone the pale star to the prophet shepherds; yet it traversed the night, and came where, in cradled obscurity, lay the Bethlehem babe, the human herald of Christ. Truth, who wold make plain to benighted understanding the way of salvation through Christ Jesus, till across a night of error should dawn the morning beams and shine the guiding star of being. The Wise-men were led to behold and to follow this daystar of divine Science, lighting the way to eternal harmony.
"The time for thinkers has come. Truth, independent of doctrines and time-honored systems, knocks at the portal of humanity. Contentment with the past and the cold conventionality of materialism are crumbling away. Ignorance of God is no longer the stepping stone to faith. The only guarantee of obedience is a right apprehension of Him whom to know aright is Life eternal. Though empires fall, 'the Lord shall reign forever'." ~ Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health with Keys to the Scripture