As we think about the relationship between religion/faith, there is a tension that people feel, specifically people who have a strong religious practice and have grown up in a church community that teaches strong ideas about what is okay and not, and it holds people back from achieving the level of relationship with God that they could. It is neither good nor bad, it just is.
I had a strong religious faith. I was a good follower, teacher and servant. I awakened eight years ago after a series of things I now understand I was meant to experience so I could expand and grow in my faith life. Prior to my awakening, I knew in my heart and soul that things I learned at church just didn't sit right. They didn't jive with what I read in my Bible and they were more "of man" than they were of God. So I set out to understand, learn and grow.
That growth led me to a side of spirituality that many call "woo." It is metaphysical, it is about energy and nature and it has traditionally in the church been a no. I've learned that they are really two sides of the same coin though. And in fact, there are incredible similarities between practices. Through building my own practice, I've learned that whether its spirituality, mediums and connecting with the other side, and all of these things that get filed as "woo" are of God. This has been one of the primary objectives of my searching: wanting to understand more about God.
Why are we here? Is it just to live a life in passing, these things happen to us and we’re just supposed to pray to get back to comfort and entertainment without any connection to them? This never sat well with me. I had a very strong connection to Christian religion and faith life, but lacked some of the answers I know today. It was from exploring outside the walls of the Christian faith that I found a deeper connection to God and the source of all life, more understanding of and love for Jesus and have experienced incredible "ah-has" related to why we are here. From incorporating spirituality practices, such as self-healing, energy work, and channeling into my own practice, I have strengthened my faith. Instead when you explore this from a greater place, you start to see and hear the messages that we’re here with great purpose. Not only are we here to be more than just the sum of our days, entertaining ourselves, playing games and trying to avoid feeling, but in fact we’re here to learn a great deal BY feeling and experiencing the highs and lows of life, and God needs us on a soul level to learn and bring back what we’ve collected in our lives to the great place we call Heaven.
I know this makes people of faith uncomfortable and I understand all the reasons why. I promise it is not against God, but actually is FOR God. I have experienced an incredible amount, incredible amount of peace when I realized that everything hard that’s happened in my life was happening for me rather than against me. This is true for you too: Everything hard that has happened in your life happend for you growth. It doesn't take away the sting, shame, challenge of the experience...but it does send you on a different path toward enlightenment.