Hi again!
It’s wonderful to be writing to you more regularly. It helps me to stay in touch with you, and when you write back, I get to know you better. One thing I am always thinking about is how to provide content that meets your needs or helps you find solutions to issues you may be facing.
Deep Personal Loss
Believe me, I have experienced a lot of deep and sorrowful losses in these past five years—losses that I never thought I could survive when I would anticipate them years prior to them actually occurring. Several of my closest friends died. My nephew died. My son-in-law died. My mother died. I could go on and on. And yet, now I have greater peace and happiness than I have ever experienced. How can that be?
Lori and her sister Sandra
Airy-Fairy Rhetoric? Or Tools for Managing Our Own Emotions?
This letter may sound airy-fairy to you as you read this. This sort of rhetoric used to fly over my head and made no sense to me at all. Knowledge and understanding and wisdom are all gained through life experience. And everything happens just as it is meant to happen.
That last sentence—”Everything happens just as it was meant to happen”—is truly the key understanding that has helped me immensely. It is something my father told me in a visitation many years after his death. When I told him that I wished I could have gotten to know him better, he smiled and said, “Everything was just as it was meant to be.” And with that, I understood that everything in life is just as it was meant to be. Even our mistakes.
Knowing Vs. Believing
In my last letter to you, I told you about my history with chronic anxiety. Like everyone, I still have my moments! But they are so much fewer and farther between now. I am sleeping better than I ever have in my life, in spite of the chaos of the world. In another letter I wrote and will be sending you, I will discuss compassion and the role it plays in our lives now. The suffering of those across the globe affects me deeply, and I have had to develop coping techniques in order to stay afloat when sorrow wants to sink me. I’m sure you can relate.
I think one major reason I am feeling better and sleeping better in spite of everything is that I no longer believe… I know. I know that we are only here temporarily. I know that these bodies are temporary. And best of all, I know that our spirit—our soul—is forever.
Having that strong knowing has made all the difference. Rather than just trying to believe in a form of heaven that can only be reached as long as I am a ‘good girl’ – I now stand strong in the knowledge that you and I are a part of All That Is, and that we are Love and we are LOVED.
You are Eternal
We are eternal, and we are all fragments of God. My understanding of “God” has changed so dramatically over the past 20 years. God is no longer a stern judgmental father figure I am constantly trying – and failing – to please. That created so much stress for me, especially since I had a complicated relationship with my own father.
Knowing that we are all One, that we are a part of God, and that God truly is LOVE – means that there is no “displeasing God.” We are all perfect, and are here, fulfilling the roles we came here to play and learning the lessons we came here to learn.
You Chose to Come Here – and that took Courage
During some deep meditative journeys I have taken, I’ve had the wonderful gift of experiencing myself as this courageous eternal being that has taken on this difficult existence and chosen to come here and JUST BE… to exist at a pivotal time in world history.
You are an eternal being, too. You have chosen to be here, now. And if you ask the eternal question, “Why am I here?” the answer you find may surprise you.
Oops. This has gotten too long again! I sure am wordy and nerdy, LOL. Ok, I’ll share more in the next on about What is YOUR purpose?
Big hug,
Lori
Thank you