Faith Beyond Appearance
by Nancy R. Bowers

I breathe into the stillness.  Drop my breath deep into my abdomen and feel how my body relaxes as I gently fill my belly and empty it. In that relaxation, in that stillness, God is. I allow gratitude to well up and my heart feels once again connected to the Love of God, where there are no worries and nothing to fret about.

I list some of the wondrous qualities of God: Love, Peace, Compassion, Support, Generosity, Light, Joy, Goodness, Limitless, Changeless, Timeless, Omnipotent, Omnipresent, Omniscient, Wisdom, Gentleness, Merciful, Kind, Grace, and Oneness.  Oneness – I am one with all of that.  You are one with all of that.  What God is, we are.   

I place my faith in that knowledge – that whatever the appearance, we are one; that we are people, who, when in our right minds, choose love.  It is only fear that blocks the awareness.  Only fear beneath the anger and hatred that spews from mouths of those who feel threatened.  I return my focus to love, again and again, knowing that what we focus on expands.  Why do the fools put all their energy into what they don’t want?  Oh right.  We all do that sometimes.  It is often easier to notice what we don’t want than build what we do. 

Choose again.  I choose love.  I choose forgiveness. I choose Oneness.  I choose to remember the qualities of God and to focus on those.  What does not appear to be love is a call for love; but its underbelly is still love.  Sometimes even knowing that isn’t enough to slap me into sanity. I have to remind myself that I invited the calls.  Those calls for love are not there to demonstrate to me that I am somehow superior.  (Ego says, “I never do that!”  I call BS.  Be honest, sweetheart, you recognize it because it is in you.)  The calls for love are my own soul’s request to heal.  I don’t need to rail against what I dislike.  I just have to lovingly accept my own part.  Choose Oneness.  Choose forgiveness.  Choose to release any and all impulse to judge any of it and recognize, “I do not know what anything is for.” I know all paths lead to Love if I decide that is my choice.

How beautiful it is to realize that God was and is always for me.  Always.  God was and is for you, too.  Without judgment, without the need or desire to divide into right and wrong, good and bad, what is just is, and that heartbeat of that is-ness is Love. 

No judgment equals freedom.  Freedom for me to be me, freedom for you to be you, for us to be us, for them to be them.  I let go of thinking I know what anyone else should or shouldn’t be doing.  What do I know? My perception of whatever seems to be happening is just a sliver of the whole.  I am incapable of perceiving how the whole fits together, and so I leave it to God. 

I fill my heart with gratitude and let go of thinking.  I let the Holy Spirit lead me.  I step back and allow Him to lead the way, then I let go.  God has it covered.  I just return to my breath and relax into the Peace of God.

And so it is.

Amen.