I was asked the other day to list my answered prayers. It was an exercise of faith.

But honestly, it's hard to list the individual answered prayers. Looking back on my life, it feels like one answered prayer led to the next and to the next. Like everything has been a long chain of blessings. I think we need to have a certain amount of humility to realize that.

God's voice is Peace. God's presence is Love. My life is blessed and even when walking the darkest valleys, I have always seen that. How can I list one answered prayer when I see my entire life as an answered prayer?

When we know that God loves us unconditionally, we can accept that all things correspond to the good of the soul. It is God's plan that we become like Him. When we can accept that, we can forgive Him for our hardships and relish them instead, as they bring us closer to His kingdom, closer to the true nature of the heart.

Ask yourself -- what has made you more humble? What has made you more forgiving? What has taught you compassion? Surely, it has been loss after loss after loss. These are God's treasures -- these are God's blessings -- this is God's will.

An Orphan with God

I am a tiny sapling tree and every time we talk about God, I grow a little bit more. Thank you all for sharing your faith with me. :)

Since I became an orphan, an amazing transformation has happened in my life. I am now fearless. Psychologists say that our relationships with our parents form the majority of our identities, and wow, is that ever true. How many people's lives have been ruined by a bad relationship with a mother or father? Well, now my only parent is God, and I have been forced to become who I have always wanted to be.

Before my dad died, my greatest fear was that I would not be strong enough to carry out God's will. I was very emotionally dependent on my father. Everything in my life revolved around him because we had so much in common. We were both writers, both musicians, both deep thinkers in our different ways. His atheism was like a sliver in my side; it caused me to doubt my faith, to make me question what I believed, and whether or not I was strong enough to share my spiritual experiences with the world. Also, fear of his death held me back. I didn't want to travel or leave home because I was afraid of losing precious time with him. Perhaps very deep in my heart, I always knew that he was going to die.

I spoke to God a lot about it... I was encroaching on 20 and I still hadn't progressed enough on my spiritual path. I hadn't reached where I needed to be. I felt like I was floating in a stagnant pool; life was too comfortable and I didn't know how to take the next step. I thought... maybe I am too weak to serve the world. Maybe this is all just a wonderful, fantastical dream, and one day I will be on the other side of the hill and realize that I have lost my chance. When I thought of that, I felt a deep, wallowing despair.

And then my father died, my last surviving parent, and I realized that I had only two choices: sink or swim. I was faced with needing to live on my own and provide for myself, and at the time I didn't even have a job. My father was thousands and thousands of dollars in debt, and to be honest, I still don't know if we will lose this house or not. I had to drop out of school and I thought I would never be able to continue with my education. My vision of the future was erased. Everything changed.

But even as I was standing next to my father's death bed, there was joy in my heart... because I know God very well. Even though everything was ripped away from me, and my life had completely changed, I was finally back on my spiritual path. I knew that if I could handle this, I would be fearless. I would be able to conquer the world. If I could learn to swim by diving into a shark pool, then I could easily tread in the deepest waters. My father's death was God's greatest sign to me. God was saying that my prayers had been heard, and that yes, I was strong enough. My path was exactly what I thought it would be.

Everything since my father's death has been a trial of faith. The jobs I've been able to find in this harsh economy, the scholarship I received to finish college, the blatant signs from God that have shown up on my doorstep... my entire life is one long unfolding miracle. Every day my faith is stronger. I've always known God, and yet now I know God in a different way. Before, I knew the truth of unity, and God's presence in my heart. Now, I can see the power of prayer, and how God works through the hands and feet of other believers. Now I can experience it for myself. I don't say God is my Father because of what we learn in church. I say God is my Father because He is. Because he provides for me as a Father, guides me as a Father, pulls me from the fire and brings me peace. I gave up my parents that I might have this relationship with God, and it is worth it. It is so very, very worth it.

I was once reborn in God... and with my father's death, I am now made new again. I am a child, but I am unafraid of the world. God's passion lives inside of me. I wish I could live every day in silence, sitting in my back yard and listening to God. If I died tomorrow, I know it would be with peace in my heart, having lived a life full of meaning and revelation. We are all so blessed to be here. We are so blessed to be alive.

God has spared me once again.

All that was wrong is now somehow made right. I was faced with all sorts of issues, legal and personal, that have resolved themselves with little effort on my part. I have been dragged from the fire by loving hands.

Father, I don't know why you spare me, but I know our love is great, and so I do not question. Thank you for your mercy. Thank you for being my family.

I walk the path to prove myself to God. I think now that God wants to prove Himself to me. I am reaching and God is reaching back. I am searching and God is making Himself known. I am putting faith in the impossible, and God is saying yes, yes, yes.

I am honored to have this life. I am not worthy of Your favor, and yet You direct me and protect me in all things. God, We truly are partners. Thank you.

Debts Forgiven: An Answered Prayer

My father passed away about a year and a half ago, leaving my brother and I with close to $50,000 in debt, credit cards and student loans combined.

I was baptized last February and attended a sermon at Church which talked about God as the "forgiver of debts." The sermon stressed that we should forgive the debts of others that God may forgive our debts. I have always been very generous in forgiving others (for more than just financial debts), and so I began praying: "Please God, forgive my father's debts. Forgive my father's debts because he forgave the debts of others." I've prayed this more than a few times over the past months.

A month ago, my brother was notified by Sally Mae that because my father was the only signer on his student loans, he doesn't need to pay back any of the money. That's $30,000 that we don't need to pay!

And finally, today, I received a letter from our lawyer informing us that my father's biggest credit card debt, $13,000 with Chase, was misfiled with the court. The credit collectors had a 1 month window to file a creditor's claim with the court in order to collect the money from the estate. Otherwise their claim can be rejected by the estate and the debt dropped, forever.

Our lawyer wrote to us reporting that Chase misfiled the claim with the court. It wasn't filed within the 1-month window, and so we can reject it! That's $13,000 that we don't need to pay!

God, thank you, thank you, thank you for forgiving my father's debts! Thank you!

My Faith, and Why

"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God."

 -Matthew 5:8 

"If then your whole body is flooded with light, and no corner of it is darkness, it will be completely illuminated as when a lamp's rays engulf you." 

 -Luke 11:36

So I always resist writing about this event because I cannot fully explain it.

It has been the defining moment of my short life, and I know, no matter how long I live, that it will always be the most defining moment. You see, you have to understand that I was raised an atheist. There was no religious dogma or ideology in my house. My feeble grasps at God began as ventures into fantasy writing, palm readings, tarot, and a fascination with the arcane. I wanted the unexplainable to be true. But logically, I knew it couldn't be. I knew that ghosts, magic, and psychic powers were all just things of fancy. But I wanted it. Because I was so young, I couldn't identify my longings. I just knew that something was out there, something was missing, my family's explanations of life were logical and yet not fulfilling. I needed to find an answer that was substantial and satisfying.

When I was 10, my mother was diagnosed with cancer. That year, I moved 2000 miles away from her to be raised by my father, who had previously been absent in my life. My parents were not divorced, but because of financial circumstances, my father had to work in Los Angeles, CA while my mother lived in Washington state. The move was a hard one. I had never been separated from my mother before and I missed her sorely. At the same time, I was rejected by the children at my new school because I was shy, androgynous, and didn't know anything about the LA lifestyle.

I was isolated. My mother's cancer ate away at her until she died two years later, when I was 12. By this time, I still identified as atheist, but I had been frantically searching for a meaning in all of the emotional hardship and life changes around me. I knew there had to be an answer, and countless times I had prayed and cried out to God, but never had there been a reply, and I was angry and unconvinced. I sought out religious friends and argued with them until they couldn't stand me anymore. Some still don't speak to me.

When my mother finally died, although it happened 2000 miles away from me, I was awash with guilt. I blamed myself for wasting the time I had had left with her. I also blamed myself for her death, because I hadn't prayed or asked God to save her life (this is a child's logic... but it was also a very real emotion that arose from my heart.) I knew it made no real sense, and yet the guilt ate away at me like a wild thing. I couldn't help but feel like if I had done something different, anything different, I could have saved her.

About three weeks after her death, the guilt and misery reached a breaking point. I was sitting on my bedroom floor attempting to read a fantasy novel that centered around Celtic mythology, and I remember that I couldn't focus. I put the book down. I fell to my knees as a crashing wave of guilt and sorrow swelled through me, and I cried out -- God, I am sorry. God, please forgive me! I need You!

At that moment, a force rushed through me that I could only describe as lightning. I cried out, and a wave of purity blasted through me, so powerful that I couldn't breathe. I opened my eyes, and I could feel love everywhere, the most divine, perfect love that I could ever perceive, so perfect that it was beyond comprehension, beyond name. The force of that love was so strong that it made me feel like I was exploding, like if it was any stronger then I would die from it. Then suddenly I was aware of an overwhelming consciousness, a presence in everything around me, as though I had been swallowed by the most beautiful music.

I looked down at the book, and threw it away from me, for the very thought of fantasy and polytheism suddenly disgusted me. The thought of atheism and man's lonely existence disgusted me. The disgust I felt was beyond physical; it was the knowledge of suddenly seeing God, of feeling God all around me and inside of me, and realizing how very wrong everything was. I stood up and went into my living room, awed by my new eyes, and looked out of my living room window. I was struck a second time by the intense presence of God, because as I looked outside and saw the trees, the grass, the sky, the cement -- I felt an intense connection in everything. God was everywhere. He was in the air, in the water, in the couch beneath me and the lungs I breathed with. Everything was connected. It was connected by perfect, divine love, and it was all in front of me.

That love changed something inside of me. It became me. I was, in every meaning of the word, reborn. My eyes were new, my thoughts were new, the world was new. I sat and breathed God and knew my source, and knew that this love was my most divine purpose; that somehow, I was seeing beyond the physical, and that everything was united and created through love. An overwhelming compassion filled me. I wanted to give this love to others. I wanted to do anything to stop people from suffering. I wanted to serve. I knew that my richest, most rewarding purpose was to serve others, to serve God, and I no longer had a choice. God's love was so powerful inside of me that to act against it made me feel physically ill.

You have to understand that I was only 12. I couldn't put it into words... and who would believe me? It was a strange sensation; I felt like God wanted me to speak, but every time I would try, people's rejection would hurt too much. I was still very sensitive. I told my father that I believed in God, but he brushed it off as a symptom of grief. It would be three years before I told anyone again about my experience. I felt like I had been given a secret, and it was easier to keep it to myself than to suffer through the misunderstandings of others.

At first I thought that everyone who believed in God must have had the same intense awakening as I did (because what else did they believe in, exactly?). It took a long time, but I slowly came to realize that the people around me, even the kinder ones, even the heavily religious ones, were in many ways oblivious to what I continued to see. I grew up in an uncomfortable in-between; knowing God in everything around me and my own heart, yet unable to fold myself into a religious ideology, because I couldn't stand the hypocrisy of most believers. I prayed nightly for God to be my teacher, and show me the truth of the world. I prayed nightly to show the world God's truth. With the fervency of a child, I prayed for God to show me how to heal the world.

I am Christian now, but I can't accept that there is only one way to understand faith. I read the teachings of Christ when I was 16 and I have been baptized since, but I still feel that the purity of my experience with God far surpasses anything else, and I understand that this experience has been written about in all religions. I see the effects of God's presence constantly in my life. In fact, He has made my life. He has created the person I am.

So when I speak of God, please listen, because my faith is genuine. God made me the way I am for a reason. We are all connected. Everything is connected. This journal is not meant to be read as a permanent ultimatum or new doctrine; this journal, rather, is a journey of faith, a documentation of my spiritual growth and understanding of God. I mean this journal to inspire you, whether you are Buddhist, Hindu, Christian, Catholic, or any of the other countless doctrines that exist in the world. This journal is, in fact, my heart, and is written with sincerity and love. I will never hide anything from you; not my doubts, my conflicts, my mistakes or my hiccups of faith. Here I am, I am not perfect, but I am happy to share God with you, because He has given me the gift of writing and the grace of knowing Him, and I would like to share my faith with the world.

I am simply, humbly, reverently defined by God's love, and my only desire is to love you the same way.

"He who experiences the unity of life sees his own Self in all beings, and all beings in his own Self, and looks on everything with an impartial eye." ~Buddha 

"God is LOVE. Whoever lives in LOVE lives in God, and God in him." 1 John 4:16 

 “Unity is divinity; purity is enlightenment." ~Sri Sathya Sai

"The soul can split the sky in two and let the face of God shine through." ~Edna St. Vincent Millay 

"When I saw others straining toward God, I did not understand it, for though I may have had him less than they did, there was no one blocking the way between him and me, and I could reach his heart easily.  It is up to him, after all, to have us, our part consists of almost solely in letting him grasp us."  ~Rainer Maria Rilke

"God is not what you imagine or what you think you understand.  If you understand you have failed."  ~Saint Augustine 

Love Letters II

I am so thankful to belong to you.

Although I know I can never be you, I can try. I know you would not have me as anything other than myself, yet I yearn to be more. What else is the soul to crave, once it has tasted perfection?

You knew when we would meet, and that eventually, I would have no one else but you. In every step of my life, you knew me, and I have been blessed to know you. There's no need to make it complicated. In fact, there is a great need in this world to make things simple. I love you because you love me. I need you because you are the only thing that's real.

Where I go, you go. Where you go, I go. Your plans are my plans, because they bring me joy. Because it is not about where we go when we die or the rewards we get. It's about living with you. It's about having this one life with you, to share. The idea of nonexistence after death does not settle with the heart, and yet I cannot imagine what Heaven could be, and I do not believe in Hell. I would have my Heaven here and now with you, where I know you exist. I would not wait to become nothing.

Happy Baptism

God sends me balloons. :)



Received this in my back yard a week before my baptism. It was stuck under a bush near my back fence. It says "Happy Baptism" in Spanish. No one knew I was going to get baptized.

You can't tell me there is no God when we are sitting inside an ocean of it. You can't tell me that God does not answer prayers when everything I have ever asked for has been given to me. You can't make God into a "half there, half not there" presence, who structures the universe but does not involve itself in the drama of man. God is nature. God is man. God is life. God is our source, and God is love.

When believing in God, people focus too much on prayer. They think answered prayers are evidence of God. When someone prays for something very specific and then receives it, that means God is "real." When someone prays and does not receive it, that means God is "not real." People see God in terms of what they can get.

But to know God, one must only be focused on serving and giving; when one serves and gives generously, their prayers are answered by default. It is just as easy to forget our answered prayers as it is to have never received them. Faith should not be based on answered or unanswered prayers, because in the long run, that is a very small part of our relationship with God. Belief must be based on the internal state of one's heart.

On this day, God wants you to know...

...that there are countless ways to love God. Love God through love for your parents. Love God through love for your spouse. Love God through love for your children. Love God through love for your friends. Love God through love for your country. For God is in all these and much, infinitely, more.

To love God, you must have an attitude of love. An attitude of receptivity and warmth and readiness to receive God's grace. An attitude of giving and generosity and not-holding-back to let God's grace flow through you and on into the world. You know you love God when you feel love flowing through you.

Love is the opposite of logic. Logic is argumentative, aggressive upon the mind, splits the world into right and wrong, us and them. Love is generative, compassionate, embracing all creation. Logic pays attention to what is being said. Love pays attention to how things are said. Logic leads to debate. Love leads to communion. Practice love to be closer to God.

Taken from the "God wants you to know" application on Facebook; my daily message for July 9, 12, and 13, 2010. Reading my mind, again.

Bad Programming

Do not allow yourself to be hurt by another's "bad programming."

We learn behaviors. Sometimes, due to circumstances beyond our control, we learn very bad behaviors. When we love another human very much, we can be hurt by their "bad programming" because we have exposed our hearts out of trust. Sometimes, the people we love can be mean and hurtful... but if we can take a step back and recognize their behavior as learned programming, and not as a personal attack, we are better able to forgive the ones we love.

The metaphor of an arrow is used in Buddhism. Buddhism teaches that when people act toward you with mean or selfish intention, their words and actions are like arrows being shot at the ground in front of us. We have the choice to either leave the arrow lying on the ground, or we can pick the arrow up and stab ourselves with it. We allow the actions of others to effect us. We allow the mean words of those we love to penetrate our hearts, even when we know better.

Remind yourself that when someone you love is acting selfishly towards you, it is not your fault, but their own bad programming. Distance yourself from the situation, give them time to "run the program" and wind down. Once they are back to their normal, loving selves, forgive them. They know not what they do -- and some learned behaviors are very old and ingrained, and difficult to overcome.

Your soul is not your human programming. The body suit you wear can be programmed through will power, mental focus, and prayer. You can either bring your body and programming into alignment with God, patience, kindness, sincerity... or you can allow your body to program itself, to be at the mercy of the influences around you, and become enslaved by your senses. Do not forget that both you and the ones you love are at the mercy of your programming. Continue to love and forgive. The slightest change in your actions can rewrite your program, and can profoundly change the programming in others.