While Fred and I were camping at Rathtrevor Beach on Vancouver Island last week, I had an unusual dream. I dreamed that I was co-facilitating Living from the Heart and looked at the schedule. My name was next to the upcoming input session. How had I missed that? Seized with panic, I looked in my binder for my notes and wondered if I’d copied the handouts.
I often dream that I’m in charge of a situation I’m unprepared for and utter chaos ensues. But what was unusual in this dream is what happened next. My panic subsided and an inner confidence in God arose. I didn’t have a clear picture of how to proceed, my session started late, and one interruption followed another. Yet I was certain that something better would come of this than if things had gone as planned.
As I reflected on the dream, I sensed that God was inviting me to rest and trust. God knows I have a couple of busy months ahead. God also knows that when I get stressed about all I have to do, I relieve the stress by working harder to get things done. This dream encouraged me to relax and enjoy the beauty around me. All shall be well.
Back home again, that gift of peace remains. There is enough time to do what needs to be done. God is with me as I prepare for the Living from the Heart intensive later this month and what’s coming up in October and November.
“All shall be well,” wrote Julian of Norwich, a thirty-year-old medieval Englishwoman, after recovering from a life-threatening illness. During that ordeal, sixteen “showings” were revealed to her and, as soon as she was well, she recorded the details of them. Julian wrote,
It is the grace of God’s goodness that our souls seek and always will, until we come to know God directly and realize that he already has us enfolded in himself . . .
And so we can approach our Beloved with great devotion, asking for our heart’s desire, knowing that what we really want is God, and that all God really wants is us.
As I sit with my dream and Julian’s words, I am touched by how tenderly and completely God cares for us. I reawaken to the reality that even in the chaos I am enfolded in God. I have what I desire.
God is inside us and inside God is everything.
–Julian of Norwich
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My friends Nancy Bailey and Marcia Frethiem are co-facilitating a half-day prayer retreat called Connecting with God. It will be at St. Stephen the Martyr in Burnaby on October 5, 9:30 am-12:30 pm. Find out more and/or register here. I’ll be there and hope you can come too. “The Lord will fulfill God’s purpose for me; your steadfast love, O Lord, endures forever.” —Psalm 138:8
What love mischief are you and God doing to care for the earth?
Let me know and I will include it in an upcoming post.
