Keep Resurrecting Your Spirit!

In my blog titled, “Resurrecting Your Spirit,” I encouraged you to focus more on your self-care, and I’d like to do that again today.  Like I said before I don’t understand why we routinely neglect our spiritual health because it’s the key to our wellness.  Our spirit is our true self.  Also known as our unconscious, it’s essential to our recovery. 

Psychologists and therapists guide us through our unconscious as we work on healing our lives.  However, I believe they only scratch the surface since they don’t delve into our spirit.  They’re not spiritual advisors, so they can only take us so far.  That’s why we need to be proactive.

If you’ve started working more on your self-care, please step back and take a look at the goals you've accomplished and those you have not.  I encourage you to set new goals and mark your calendar 30 days from now and each time you set new goals to re-evaluate how you're doing.  

Pat yourself on the back about the goals you've accomplished.  For the times you fell short, don't beat yourself up about it, just figure out how you can do better.  Keep doing it and doing more of it.  Keep resurrecting your spirit!

As a survivor of childhood sexual violence, my faith in God saved my life.  By the grace of God, I held onto my faith when I began having suicidal thoughts.  Today, I am a happy and peaceful person no longer suffering from Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).  Thanks be to God!

During one of the darkest times of my life after the abuse, I was living at the YMCA in the Gold Coast in a room the size of a large, walk-in closet and working as a security guard in a River North condo building.  That’s when I was blessed with the remarkable experience and privilege of writing a book I never wanted to write, A Rape Survivor’s Spiritual Journey: My Poems and Practical Exercises.  Visit my website, listen to a clip of my website theme song, and download a FREE PDF of my book. 

Below is one of the poems in my book.  Please note the poems with italics are God's words, not mine.  I hope it consoles you.  

Return to Live!

You hate me.

That’s okay,

but I still love you just the same.

I know that you’re not you, AND you’re in agony and pain.

I see you suffer and hear you cry.

I wish you’d turn to me,

and see me cry beside you

and hear my gentle plea.

Come back.  Come back.  Come back to me!

Let me hold you in my arms.

I loved you into life.  Please let me love you one more time.

I’m here and love you SO much it makes me cry to see

you struggle all alone and no longer call on me.

Hate me.  Yell and swear at me if that’s exactly how you feel.

Just keep talking.  Don’t shut me out.  I’m not going anywhere.

Go ahead.  Do it.  Right now.  I’m always listening, you know.

Remember, you can hate me, but away I’ll never go.

Return to me.  Return to live

the life I meant for you,

and through your suffering and pain

you will find your life renewed.

Inspired by Ezekiel 18:32.

Open the Door of Your Heart and Let God Into Paradise

“God’s paradise is the human heart.”  Reading this quote by St. Alphonsus Liguori, always  melts my heart.  It also reminds me how intensely pure and unconditional God’s love is for me: something I’ve always wanted yet feared my whole life.  In any love relationship, being committed is terrifying because you’re allowing yourself to be vulnerable.  You don’t know what’s going to happen or how much you’ll have to give up of yourself to grow together, so you don’t grow apart.

Then I remember that God’s love is perfect and mine’s not.  Paul talks about God’s ideal love in 1 Corinthians 13:4 – 8, “Love is patient, love is kind…It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things...Love never fails.”  I’m always moved after reading these words precisely because they speak to my heart.  They remind me that God’s love is always authentic.  He passionately loves me, you, and everyone else like that, and the words “God’s paradise is the human heart,” not only melts my heart but consoles its trepidations.

God gave us an intellect, so I don’t believe God wants us to have blind faith.  Otherwise, I don’t think Jesus would have said, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.  For everyone who asks, receives; and the one who seeks, finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened."  (Matthew: 7:7)  All we have to do is open the door of our hearts and let God into our paradise.

Finding Your Wonder of the World

Wonders of the world

They say are seven

All breath-taking,

A slice of heaven,

Yet, they always forget the most

Beautiful

Mystical

Amazing

Wonder of them all.

Miraculous.

Deeper than the ocean,

Infinite, yet mortal, and

Reading this now.

That wonder is you.

Feeling lost?  You can be found.

Don’t keep going round and round,

Afraid of losing and finding you

You are amazing.  Breath-taking

The eighth wonder of the world

You are the slice of heaven that you crave

Stop living with one foot in the grave

I pray you find professional counseling in your community.  Meanwhile, I hope Mariah Carey’s song “Hero” inspires you to follow your healing path.