Bathed in Love

Day One of my retreat is complete. I have been taking several days in personal reflection for 25 years, and while I will be the first to say there is no "normal," I have certainly experienced patterns.

Generally, I read something introspective in the days before or even on Day One, as I did part of today. Most of the time lessons are thrown on my path in the days before just to stir things up a bit. Almost always I do a lot of journaling, which, more often than not, leads to some emoting--I cry because I recognize a flaw in me that I don't like. (News bulletin: I am human.)

Sometime on the third or fourth day, after I have looked at my ugliness, I have usually had an almost other-worldly experience of feeling God's love and light move through me. The experiences have always been extraordinary.

Three or four hours into my reflections today, a recurring image presented itself. A large opulent round room with 12 to 14-foot high ceilings and gold silk moire wallpaper has popped into my meditations off and on for at least a dozen years. The particularly interesting feature is that all the way around the room are almost equally tall doors...without door knobs. There I stand in the middle of this beautiful room with no apparent way out.

Over the years what happens next has varied, but today as I stood in the middle, slowly pondering my plight, suddenly one door swung open inward, then another and another. As the did, what each revealed was what I can only describe as looking like golden walls of water as it opened. While I instinctively braced myself for a force that I expected could knock me over, as the forces moved toward me in all directions, they were as warm and gentle as the first morning's light as they embraced me. I was literally being bathed in the light of God's love. This was what I "normally" would have expected in the final days of my retreat, not the first.

Hmm. I felt so loved, safe and warm, like there was absolutely nothing in my life that wasn't perfect. Well, I thought, where do I go from here?

I have to fall back on a garden metaphor to describe my retreat experiences. When I pick up rocks in the garden, more often than not, creepy, crawly things await me underneath. Not exactly scary but also not pleasant either. Depending on what I find, sometimes I just put it right down and try to ignore it. So it is with lessons I need to learn. Sometimes there's scary stuff that reveals itself when I begin turning over the rocks of my life.

Over the years I've dispensed with a lot of those metaphorical rocks. Others are life lessons that I have explored over and again, just in different manifestations.

I believe my experience of being bathed in God's love so early in my retreat this time was to give me courage to turn over those really scary rocks and to know that it would be okay. No matter what I find, I will always be safe with God beside me.

The journey continues...

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