I have been through the emotional ringer for the past couple of days because my daughter, who I love so deeply, is going through a very challenging time in her life. Tonight I feel like I did at age 16 when I gave up believing in God.  I feel alone, so numb I can’t even cry. The only feeling I’m sure of is the anger I feel because my daughter is going through pain and suffering and I can’t do anything about it. I’ve spent almost every waking moment in the last 28 years trying to heal from my abusive past, raising her in a more loving and balanced way, while constantly pursuing a connection with spirit for guidance. Tonight the only thing I am connected to is some old forgotten rage and abandonment that I felt as a teenager which caused me to quit believing in God.

Born into fundamentalist Christianity, I became an atheist at the young age of 16. One of the main reasons I abandoned religion and the fundamentalist god was the depiction of god I was taught never made sense to me. The basic story that was told as literal truth was that god is this perfect spirit who created a beautiful garden on Earth for his human creations, Adam and Eve. He created these beings basically to keep him company, and the only thing they had to do was to just leave one particular fruit off the menu.  Unfortunately though, Eve was tricked by a snake into eating the fruit from the forbidden tree of Knowledge.   She in turn enticed Adam to do the same and because they failed the test, they were kicked out of the garden and had to then live in a hellish place outside of the gate. Then if that weren’t bad enough if they didn’t come to their senses and repent of their original sin before they died, and worship this perfect god then they would have to go to an even worse hell when they died because they rejected and hurt the feelings of their ” loving heavenly father”.   Of course we all know there was no heavenly mother because if there had been, then this male driven ego drama would never have been written. This kind of god or creation scenario made no sense to me on any level.   I, as a 16 year old child, was a far better parental figure, and was far more loving, and compassionate than this so called god.  Because I felt in my heart that no matter what my future children might possibly do, and that would include rejecting or even hating me, I would not even create the possibility of a hell much less send my child there no matter what they did or didn’t do.

So the fundamentalist god was definitely not my idea of a being I could believe in. So until I was 27 I just had no belief in any kind of god because my only exposure to the god concept was my fundamentalist up bringing. I was so angry at my parents choice to force me into their religion I chose to be an “atheist” until my life was turned upside down when I was 27.  

This was when I was introduced to another possibility of God, one of my own understanding. I started going to Alanon meetings because I had 2 people in my family who had gone through treatment and were recovering addicts and I was a severe codependent who almost enabled one of them to death. So, I recognized and acknowledged my personal pathology, worked the program, and opened up to the possibility of a higher power for the sake of my husband, my 7 month old baby at the time and my daughter who had not been born yet. I spent the next 6 years trying to come to believe in a power greater than myself,  and eventually began working the program for myself as well.  

In 1991 at age 33 I finally had a spiritual awakening. Through many synchronicities I found my own personal higher power who I would call the “Universe”. God the Universe includes every atom that I and all other beings are made of as well as all inanimant atoms. I could believe that every atom in the universe is pure love solidified into different forms.  It made sense to me that this energy could act as yin or yang, good or bad, male or female, whatever would be necessary for spirit to experience everything physical. This knowing revealed to me the purpose of the dual nature of the 3rd dimensional Earth, opposites attract and hold together in this wonderful creation. This concept of the Universe as God, was my holy grail, there was no judgement, no worshipping needed, no hell except the one we create here on earth because we forget at times how to navigate well in duality.  This God force energy uses synchronistic signs and symbolic metaphors to guide us along our path back to oneness.  This is the God that resonated with my heart all those years ago but that eludes me tonight as I search for signs to show me the way forward.

I have followed my spiritual path forward and sometimes backwards for many years now.  I have chosen with others who are called, to resolve the duality in the third dimension by using kundalini energy to transmute emotional and mental energies into wholeness.  It has been rough at times because like tonight I have struggled with why, after all the emotional processing, and all the different ways I have tried to improve how I navigate this third dimension, I am still knocked in the head by circumstances that feel like I have gone back to square one.  In these dark nights of the soul I tell the Universe I am done trying to change myself and evolve, I am sick of feeling like a failure. In my rage I give up and tell spirit I’m done until you show yourself to me. I must have SIGNS that you exist tonight I can’t handle continuing to struggle without hope. I decide to write these words tonight to describe the grief I’ve been purging for two days, and remind myself of all the highs and lows of this long road that has brought me to this place.

As I’m writing the words you just finished reading, my daughter whose personal struggles triggered this catharsis, texted me a picture of a ladybug, that even in the dead of winter, inside a car, had found a warm resting place on her arm, asking the question ” Do you think this is a SIGN things are going to get better”? Well time will tell if her most recent personal struggles are over, but for me this was definitely a Sign I was asking for. A ladybug represents a wish fulfilled, a new beginning, so I will take this as a SIGN and recognize the SIGN I wasn’t aware of until this now moment.  My painful circumstances that drove me back to my atheism and dredged up rage and abandonment issues was a SIGN that there was still something I needed to heal that I thought was no longer affecting me. I must look at it, feel it, transmute it, until I am clear of the stuck energy and can see from a higher perspective that what looks like a hopeless situation is just a SIGN pointing me in the direction of an area in my soul calling for healing, and unconditional love, and acceptance.  Thank God for SIGNS!!