“God wants me to work with Him, partner with Him. My job is to remember to not leave the house without Him.”
Laura Lane from ‘I Touch the Heavens’
In my first newsletter 4 months ago, I shared my thoughts on how to ask the Divine for help. I compared the need for prayer with both a pilot’s flight plan and going out for a swim in open water.
Lately I have felt like I am barely treading water and I’m running out of energy. I don’t quite feel like I’m drowning but I do feel exhausted from the swim and the shore feels like a long way off.
I currently live 15 minutes from the second biggest lake in Canada – Lake Huron. I grew up going to the cottage here every year as a child. Summers were spent on Sauble Beach, playing on the soft warm white sand and swimming in the shallow turquoise waters of Lake Huron.
The beach is 5 miles long and the water is shallow for at least half a mile. As kids we would wade out up to our chests, swim a few feet and find ourselves on a sand bar where the water only reached our knees again. We would do this over and over again as the sight of our parents on the beach got further and further away. We felt completely safe. We knew we could touch bottom if we needed to. When the winds picked up, we could ride the waves back to shore.
In my life and business this week, the wind has picked up and waves seem to be getting bigger. I’m swimming against the current. The water feels deep. I have a thousand things to do, and I keep having to remind myself with a recent announcement from my doctor that my iron levels are now in the anemic range that that’s why I feel so tired all the time!
I don’t need my Divine Lifeguard to jump in to save me but from His vantage point on the tower I could use His perspective to tell me where the next sand bar is and when to put my feet down.
So, the key question for me right now is: how do I stop myself from struggling long enough to listen to His advice?
I know the answer is in the safety of looking to my Heavenly Parents. Setting my sights on the shore. I know the way for me to do that is through quiet meditation. If I will stop long enough to listen, God will encourage me, remind me how far I have come, and help me get to my destination.
In my Soul Chocolate Meditation Retreats we talk about how meditation can help us reach one of many destinations: the destination of Peace, Gratitude, Love, Inspiration or simply encouragement and renewed strength, to know we are not alone. We can learn to receive all that if we just stop long enough, put down our struggles and simply be with the Divine.
That is my challenge: put my pen down, close my laptop, turn off my phone, step away from my desk, go for a walk, find a quiet spot and sit long enough that I can see, feel and know all God has in store for me.
What do you need to be able to better listen to what the Divine has to say to you?
“[When we] approach [our] God in secret there are at least four great blessings that will come to [us] here and now; … Gratitude, gratitude for blessings unrealized. …Guidance … Confidence … Inspiration… It is not an imagination that we can approach God and can receive light and guidance from Him, that our minds will be enlightened, our souls thrilled by His Spirit.”
David O. McKay