Relationship

I am very grateful to begin this month sharing with readers again, especially with growth I have experienced over this past month specifically. I am experiencing joy that I have only known one other time in my life, when I had a profound spiritual experience (later thrown away with anger) and it is now 30 years later that my spirit is renewed and excited to be in relationship with Creator God, along with Jesus and The Holy Spirit; The Trinity.

I have shared in the past that I have longed for an intimate relationship with Christ throughout my life, as young as I can recall. However, I longed for no ordinary relationship, but an extraordinary relationship. I was lost most of the time, not knowing what my part was in relationship with Christ, believing He was present in my life and was ‘doing His part‘, but I was lost and returned to drowning the depth of this unfulfilled relationship, actually there was little to even call a relationship until the gift of good directions was offered to me via the 12 steps.

Once in recovery and my faith was beginning to be renewed, I poured myself (willing to go to any lengths) into the action required of me hoping the result would satisfy this longing in an intimate, loving relationship with God. (To avoid being redundant, when I mention God, this includes Jesus Christ and The Holy Spirit as One, except when specifically discussing the One, as being One of the Trinity.) Over the course of the past 29 years, I have had a number of profound spiritual experiences, but never like what I am experiencing and understanding recently and today, knowing this will never end as long as I follow the must in the BB and continue to grow.

In addition, how perfect is God’s timing? As they say, “When the student is ready the teacher appears! “ So very true. I had to make some hard decisions, one that I have struggled with most of my life and that is my former Religion, the spiritual bondage I felt, along with my experience of ritual and duty over desire to be in relationship with God, as well as the little value I experienced as a woman/female; basically I had limited opportunities to serve based on the fact that I was created a woman. I have gone back and forth for years with some going to both extremes, until I finally took a good inventory of my relationship with the religion of my family, and decided it was not in harmony with the longing of my spirit to be walking hand in hand with the Spirit of the Universe. Therefore, I left and after months of pondering where to find a spiritual family that is in line with my belief in The Trinity.

As God would have it through good decisions, action and trust, my husband and I met a wonderful couple who invited us to experience their Celebration and Worship of God. Wow, a celebration! I could not wait and off we drove, after considering this for a few months, knowing we could not bear the absence of a spiritual family, we went. Moreover, long story short, we continue to attend every Saturday night. Yes, Saturday night, and funny how we could not arrive timely to our former place of worship (3 minute drive from our home) and now we begin to prepare for our 2 hour round trip drive Saturday afternoon, excited to celebrate relationships with our human spiritual family and to praise and worship God together.

Now that I am current with just a few changes we have made, my mind open and my spirit trusting, eagerly learning and my mind being opened, as though a veil had covered it from understanding what my spirit knew; I experience Joy on a daily basis. Yes, deep and abiding joy, happiness, all of those wonderful things we are promised in the BB, as well as The Bible; the whole Bible, not just the New Testament.

These past few weeks have been a Jewish celebration, called The Feast of Tabernacles. A time celebrating God’s Glory. This is something I have never experienced, yet, once I understood how we could experience this celebration, I was willing and excited. I finally ‘heard’ in my mind and in my heart, that God wants to be with me, with us! Some of you may have known this for years, and I understood from a distant perspective that yes, God wants to be with us, not believing HE is now and present and yes, wants us to set aside time to be with Him. This is more than our regular morning prayer and meditation, but setting aside time to sing, read The Bible, share with each other God’s blessings and our hearts gratitude, inviting God to be with us. Now understanding that God also wants us to give Him the first of all we do and are, like the first part of our day, the first of our blessings, etc, leading up to Tabernacles.

I hope those of Jewish faith excuse my lack of explanation, as I truly want to share the new awareness and experience in my soul, that God is present in my life, and He wants to be with me. We experienced His presence each time in our Sukkah (a temporary shelter) and as little kids; we built ours inside of our home with a sheet, making a tent.

I have not experienced in truth and reality God’s presence that satisfied my longing for an extraordinary relationship until now. To share the intimate time we experienced with God is too precious and I do not want to set an expectation for you, other than what is written in The Bible. Simply believe He wants to be with you and let His Spirit guide you.

This is not a relationship just for weekends, or during holidays, but everyday God wants to celebrate life with us. His Presence, essence is now part of me, although I was happy before, a joy I have never known in this way, where my mind and my spirit are in harmony with each other and I am at peace. Grateful in a new way. I guess you could say I have been reborn, again. Who knew?

Today I am in relationship with God, understanding that Jesus wants us to also know God. I never understood Chris’ statements about providing Living Water (John 7:37-38) “On the last day of the feast, Jesus said in a loud voice, ’If anyone is thirst, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, streams of living water will flow from his innermost being.” Again, as though a veil as lifted from my mind, my soul is satisfied with Living Water and that is the everlasting presence of His Spirit.

Sadly, I did not expect much from God as one of my former core lies about myself, was that I had no value or worth, and today I realize that God wants to be with me, as I have value and worth because He created me. No wonder my expectations or hopes that God would want relationship with me, as that core idea was with me even until recently, and He relieved me of this lie in an instant.

Step 11 in the BB, page 85 states, “Every day is a day when we must carry the vision of God’s will into all of our activities.” How can we do so unless we are in relationship with His Spirit? We are given the expectation to expect God to inspire us and this will eventually become a working part of our mind. This is not an emotionally based relationship, it is mind and spirit. We are told in the BB, page 87, “We come to rely upon it” God’s inspirations, yet we have to be with Him as we would any other relationship, we have to show up, learn about who we are in relationship with, etc.

Lastly, the BB also tells us to make use of what Religious people have to offer, and suggests that there are also helpful books for us.
I pray that you too may come to expect an intimate relationship with God, and to continue seeking, along with the steps, guidance that supports your growth in relationship with God. We tell newcomers in meetings, that they never have to be alone again, well at 3:00am when everyone is sleeping and we find ourselves alone, God will never leave us and our dependence and relationship with God must be real.

The good news is God will meet us right where we are, as we continue seeking Him, He will satisfy the longings of our heart, and for me that was an intimate, alive and joy filled relationship with The Trinity. It is nice to begin to be in relationship with God, as my focus these past 29 years has been solely on Christ and now I am in relationship with The Trinity.

I look forward to your comments, as my intention is to share experience, strength and hope to support your continued growth in relationship with God.

May your day and night be filled with joy, as you experience relationship with God, Creator of all that is good.

Many Blessings,
Carol Ann Preston


carolannpreston 2010

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January 13, 2008
Carol Ann Preston

Inspiration: motivation, incentive, enlightenment, illumination, brainstorm, vision, etc.

Practicing the discipline of prayer and meditation for over 26 years I have been willing to learn and grow as Ilearn to listen and recognize inspiration and to follow God’s Spirit as the source to inspire my daily life. Today I rely on Spirit’s inspiration and more readily recognize the difference between ego inspired thoughts and those that are in harmony with the Spirit of Christ and these have a foundation of love, joy, perseverance and discipline. I have found one consistent theme and that is Love.

Some examples where I have experienced inspiration have often been the simplest ones that I hear at the beginning of the day, when I am uncertain what I am to do that day, ‘get up and do the next right thing.’ Sometimes I am inspired to clean house, other times I am inspired to write, make phone calls, write letters, or take a walk. These are the simple and what seems to be ordinary inspirations of my daily life, although in the beginning there was no such thing as ordinary inspiration, as my spirit was starved for inspired thoughts, something that was not focused on me. It has been through many spiritual awakenings, practicing disciplined prayer and meditation in my life that ushers into my mind inspired thoughts at various times of the day. Beginning with a committed, disciplined relationship with Christ, I also committed to follow His lead, as I am directed, on a ‘need to know basis.’ In doing so, inspired thoughts and opportunities of service have increased as I also continue to practice examination of conscious and watch for 'ego' that would deceive me.

Sometimes I wake up at 3:00AM and I am inspired to get up and pray for others. Sometimes I am inspired during my time of prayer who to pray for, but many times I pray for people in general, and I pray for about an hour and then go back to bed. In the early years of listening to inspiration, I was also growing in my trust in God’s Spirit to guide me throughout the day and I began to experience seemingly simple guidance as I practiced the discipline of ‘listening.’ I learned that discipline and trust is a key component in my being inspired. I had become willing to follow as He led, on a need to know basis. And this simple attitude works well in my harmonious relationship with God. Knowing He his part is to lead and mine is to follow.

One early afternoon I was on my way home from work, having worked late the night before I was afforded the privilege to go home early and I looked forward to taking a much needed nap before my children came home from school. A block before our home, the thought came to my mind to drive to my daughter’s school and pick her up. I argued back and forth in my head as I considered my desire to take a quick nap and I did not want to go anywhere else. But, this inspiration did not stop; over and over in my head was the same instruction, "Go to your daughters school." After relenting, sensing this instruction was an opportunity of trusting discipline, I followed and made a left turn at the stoplight and drove straight to her school.

I parked along the driveway, where there were plenty of other parents in their cars waiting for their children. This was Jr. High and since I saw plenty of students lingering out front I assumed the school bell had already dismissed students for the day. With parents sitting in their car I noticed there was no school faculty out front with the students. I thought this was odd and then saw a large gathering of students off to the front side of the school building. Recalling Jr. High myself, I sensed this meant trouble. I got out of my car and walked into a circle of students and heard, "Mom" loud and clear and noticed my daughter was one of those on the outside of the circle with the other kids. There were two pre-teen young girls in the middle of this circle who were about to start fighting. I mean physically fighting, with a large gathering of other students surrounding and encouraging them. I noticed that one of my daughter’s best friends was in the middle of this soon to be fight. "Where were all the teachers?" I thought to myself. I yelled out my daughter’s and her girlfriend’s name and with authority told them both to follow me and get in my car, ‘NOW!’ With no argument, the girls quickly followed me and jumped into the backseat of my car, with no word spoken by anyone until we had pulled away from the school. "What was going on?" I asked. I was told that my daughter’s friend was about to fight another, much stronger and bigger girl from school as she had made this girl mad and had known she would be hurt in a fight, and so on. She was greatly relieved to having had an option out of the fight. I thought silently to my self, "God knew there would be no faculty out front when this fight would have occurred, and someone called out to Him for help, and I was able to ‘hear’ an opportunity to be His instrument of service."

The girls wanted to know why I was there, since it was not customary for me to pick my children up from school. I told them about the inspired thought that came to my thoughts and told them that their guardian angels were looking out for them that day and to thank God for His ever-presence, and reminded them that all areas of our lives matter to God. Arriving home, I allowed myself a time of peace and quiet prayer and meditation, never forgetting this example to follow persistent inspiration, even when I do not know the why of it all.

The last example I would like to share, is when my young cousin died. One early morning, during my prayer and meditation time, I sensed that I needed to drive the following day and visit my aunt and uncle. I told my husband, noticed that I had no previous commitments, and packed for the following days 4 hour drive. I went about my day as normal, and went to bed with plans to spend one to two days with my relatives.

The following morning, after I had begun my day, I received a phone call early from my mother. She told me that my cousin had drowned the day before, as he worked on a barge in the Gulf of Mexico and it had taken on water, and my cousin did not survive. She told me that it would be at least a day before she could put her affairs in order to make the drive to her brother’s home, and asked me if I could drive to stay with them until she could get there.

I told her that I was already packed, and about the inspired thoughts to go and visit my aunt and uncle the day before. When she called, I was already dressed and packed, ready to go, ready to be of service to my aunt and uncle who had just been notified that their only son had drowned. Leaving grieving parents, a sister, a young widow and 3 young children to pray for and minister too.

As I drove the next few hours, I talked to God the entire way, with a grateful heart that I had been called to be a channel for His love, and grateful that I had learned to listen and follow directions, even when I did not know why. I was grateful that my husband had become accustomed to inspired thoughts and avenues of service and that he supports my efforts. I was allowed the privilege of serving my grieving aunt and uncle, and assisting in the preparation of a memorial service for my cousin, utilizing years of experience in supporting the grieving, to now give to my family.

God guides me toward acts of love, consideration and kindness to those around me, with an attitude of care and respect. God’s creation benefits from inspired thoughts that I recognize and act upon and through service I have discovered joy to be the source of my happiness.

May you be blessed with inspired guidance and experience the joy of serving with love,
Carol Ann Preston

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