On grace and gratitude

What does grace mean to you? To me it relates to gratitude, to the knowing that in the Universe, as hard as things seem there is a benevolent force that wishes me good, that supports me and looks out for me..It goes contrary to the woe is me attitude that can befall so many of us who have a perfectly good reason or lots of them to think this way due to past hurt or serious trauma.

There is also a saying in the AA fellowship, : There but for the grace of God go I.. I like to think that sensitivity marks me out in this way, though it can hurt a lot to feel things intently, to be aware of suffering and not able to easily turn away I prefer it to being shut down (though at times I have wished to be numb to not have to face things, to not have to feel them.) The thing is what I resist just tends to persist and find a way to come back and bite me on the bum later anyway.. We cannot run from our shadow side or secrets forever.

Grace helped me get out for a later walk today.. It helped me roll with the changes. It opened me to being able to accept my gardener wants to come at an earlier time tomorrow.. 8 am used to just be impossible for me, but lately its a rare day I am not awake by 6 or 7 even if battling my body trauma storm.. I am learning to be more in my body than in my head, more in the present than the past, more able to plant both feet on the ground without my spine spinning out of control and if that is hard I am using light weights to move my arms and a lot of dancing and stretching yoga movements to find a way to be with both the expansions and contractions while grounding my palms and souls on the earth and feeling that connection to a place that was, in younger years, so often a source of pain.

I like to think there is a kind of deeper birthing going on for so many of us right now. I just heard a disaster talk on global warming but to be honest I don’t see signs of it here this summer, we have had more rain and more cooler days than in a long time.. My birthday lunch was held at the Arboretum on Sunday and after the meal my friend Sue and I had a long walk through very very green countryside and saw the growth in the hundreds of trees planted there…

Today I have hope in God’s grace and in our capacity to find the missing spiritual and soul connection deep trauma brings.. .. I trust in the Universe even when fear comes and speaks its disaster thoughts to me, I can call on the angels and Higher Power or my loving inner parent for help.. I can feel myself held..

Grace lets me know all is well even when fear tries to tell me it isn’t that others are ignoring or do not care about me when really they are just wrapped in in their own lives.. Grace helps me to see that things will work out fine, even if they do not go according to plan.. Grace and gratitude are deeply interconnected for me, they come and go but when I am grounded in that place of grace and gratitude all anxiety leaves me.. if only for a while I feel that peace that passes all understanding flooding through me and I feel my heart awake and alive..