God's Wild Flower

As much as I am able to know, I am what I am, and I am willing to wait for what God has planned.

Lately I have been withdrawing from life and many of the people around me. I am taking longer breaks in solitude. It is strange to feel God call to us. It is a voice... like music, which moves through the whole body... and suddenly, I cannot choose anything else, I must go where I am drawn.

"For a long time I wondered why God showed partiality, why all souls don't receive the same amount of graces.

Jesus consented to teach me this mystery. He placed before my eyes the book of nature; I understood that all the flowers that He created are beautiful. The brilliance of the rose and the whiteness of the lily don't take away the perfume of the lowly violet or the delightful simplicity of the daisy.... I understood that if all the little flowers wanted to be roses, nature would lose its springtime adornment, and the fields would no longer be sprinkled with little flowers....

So it is in the world of souls, which is Jesus' [God's] garden. He wanted to create great Saints who could be compared to lilies and roses. But He also created little ones, and these ought to be content to be daisies or violets destined to gladden God's eyes. Perfection consists in doing His will, in being what He wants us to be.

I understood that Our Lord's love is revealed as well in the simplest soul who doesn't resist His grace in anything. In fact, since the essence of love is to bring oneself low, if every soul were like the Saints and Prophets who have shed light on the Church, it seems that God wouldn't come low enough by forming only their great hearts. But He created the child who doesn't know anything and only cries weakly, He created poor ignorant persons who only have natural law as a guide -- and it is to their hearts that he consents to come down: Here are wildflowers whose simplicity delights Him....

Just as the sun shines at the same time on the tall cedars and on each little flower as if it were the only one on earth, in the same way Our Lord is concerned particularly for every soul as if there were none other like it. And just as in nature all the seasons are arranged in such a way as to cause the humblest daisy to open on the appointed day, in the same way all things correspond to the good of each soul."

St. Therese of Lisieux, 1873-1897 

May I always be God's wildflower, in his deepest forest, blooming.

Knowing God

I've cracked open a book called Feeling Like God by Chris Tiegreen. Lots of good stuff... it talks about the emotions of God as outlined in the Bible and tries to help the reader understand God on a more human level. This is supposed to help us build a stronger relationship with Him, which is a good deal, since we are God's children, after all. Everything we are is a dim, dim, dim shadow of Him....

But something stood out to me in the first chapter of the book that bugs me. It mentions "knowing" God as in studying Him through a book. Chris Tiegreen then goes on to say that it's not enough to know Him through the Bible, we must feel like God as well. Feeling like God is what helps us build a deeper relationship with Him. This shocked me because since coming into my own faith, I have always thought it was obvious that to know God is to feel God, and it has nothing to do with the Bible at all.

Let me ask a question: can you claim to know someone just by reading a few letters they sent you in the mail? If Angelina Jolie sent you a letter telling you about what she bought when she went shopping yesterday, does that mean you know her?

Can you know someone if you have never met them in person but talk to them on the phone every day? Perhaps a bit better.

Can you know someone if you've never been involved in a deeply romantic relationship with them? Especially a long marriage, including sex, children, and the whole nine yards? After a lifetime together, you can claim to know someone much, much better....

But knowing God, when you really know God, is much deeper than all of these things, because God first and foremost resides inside of you.

Knowing God is what real salvation/revelation is. In this book, Chris Tiegreen starts out by speaking of "knowing God" as though it has to do with humanly study and knowledge, but that's impossible. We can never truly comprehend God in our minds... and for God's sake, don't base your "knowing God" on "knowing the Bible." The Bible is nothing like God, not when it is taken as a whole.That's where the essential flaw lies in studying the Bible. Everything that comes before Jesus' teachings should really be thrown out, because all that stuff about "jealousy" and "rage" is simply not true.

When you really know God and you know God's presence in all things, you also realize that religion has very little to do with it. Imagine for a moment that your brother walks into the room. You know it's your brother; you can see him, hear him talk, maybe even smell him if he hasn't showered. Now imagine that you can know God in just the same way. You sit down in a room and you are silent, and suddenly you can feel a love, connection, and consciousness humming through everything. Knowing is an emotion, but it's more real than that. The faith of the saints and prophets is a feeling, it's an experience and a "knowing" that is absolutely incorruptible because it cannot be challenged. God walks into a room and you see Him. You can't know God much more than that.

You can know God on earth. God isn't sitting somewhere out there on some Heavenly throne. Even Christ said "The Kingdom of Heaven is inside of you." God is here and now. You know God when you can see God here and now.

Where there is life...

Where there is life, there is God.

In Heaven, there is life in its purest form.

Those who know God know life in its purest form.

God, give me back to God. Give me back to the Spirit of Life. Give me back to that which I came, to that which made me, and remade, and shall make again. God, bring me back to You that we might continue our work. I am sorry for straying. I am sorry for thinking I am not what I am; for thinking I am less or more. I am sorry for that which is between us.

God says, You are everything to me.

And I, I am nothing, if alone.

It cannot be earned...

Prayer is powerful. Prayer is the only means to awaken a soul to God. If prayer can make one see God, what can't it do?

Gifts cannot be earned. They can only be given freely. This is how God gives His Gifts. You cannot earn a blessing from God; you will never be pure enough to match the divine will; God made us this way. It is better to be weak. God loves to lift you. God is waiting for you to be weak and crawl to Him, that you might see Him, that He might show you His highest Self. If you do not approach God helplessly, that which thinks it is strong[er than God] will make you blind. Why else do we suffer? That we might learn the sweetness in suffering, the absolute nothingness of our smaller selves, and absolute surrender to our Father.

I surrender again and again. It is a daily practice. We can never be strong. We can only be weak with God; only in our weakness can God work through us. Only by our humility can we follow His path.

It is dangerous to say "I am God." To be God is not to be powerful, but to be Love. To be beyond self. To be the wholeness in all things. To have God's wholeness, there must be endless sacrifice until the very word sacrifice becomes irrelevant, because all things bring joy.

Love Letters IV

It is my joy to bring you joy. And when I bring others joy, I feel your joy, and I am warmed.

Give to me that I might give to them. Love me that I might love them. Heal me that I might heal them. Teach me that I might teach them.

You are my only, my divine, my immortal moment. You are melody in sound, a breath in the silence, the core of each verse. You sing to me and I sing to you; we sing for each other.

Dear God, I pray to be your divine melody, to learn and to sustain it. I pray to be the fullness of each note, the silence of each rest, the crescendo and finale. Dear God, I pray to be the voice of your voice, the will of your will, the heart of your heart and a vessel of your unconquerable love. Dear Lord, anoint me. Bring me your burdens in rain, sun, and storm. Give me the brightest lamp, the longest road, the hardest path and the highest peak; give me the heaviest heart that the world might be lighter. Show me your strength, and dear God, give me your courage that I might cry out against the sickness that has poisoned our people, the worm that has rotted the fruit of your trees. Dear God, make me a falcon that I might fly towards daybreak and skim the skies, lifted by your endless wind.

I shall move fast for your pace is upon me, and I know that you drive me as surely as daybreak, you lead me as the Sun across the sky.

A Promise

First written October 7, 2009 © Theresa Shreffler

I do not believe that you are beyond potential.
I do not think that you are undeserving of love.
I will never look at you and criticize your faults,
nor will I ever love you any less because of them.

I do not believe that you are beyond suffering,
nor do I believe that your cruelties are your own,
nor will I ever believe that you are less than me
nor will I ever judge you for a lack of faith.

I will never pretend to listen to you, while you speak
your heart to me; I will thank you and bow, knowing
you have trusted and seen in me all that I want to give;
if I may, then let me fail a thousand times for you to succeed.

I will never falter, I will never waver in my belief
in you, nor in the path that brought us together;
I will value every brief second we spend, even in passing,
even if I did not make you smile, even if

I did not touch your heart. I will gladly suffer
your pain with you, and burden the greater
if I could, and forgive you for any doubt, and
when you leave, I will bless your feet that

you may walk on water, that you may not
falter nor tire, and that your road will lead you
only to fulfillment, satisfaction, and peace.

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.