I must admit when I first started on this course I wasn’t really sure where it would take me. I have always had a deep faith and have regularly attended a very traditional church all my life taking my place most Sundays in the choir for the past 36 years. However although I have found great solace and a connectives to God I have never really questioned my beliefs. Well actually that’s not strictly true. At the age of 21 years I did a Bishops Course which moved me into thinking I had a calling towards ministry. However I had recently lost my Mum from cancer, was having to look after the family and wanted to get married, all of which pushed my feelings into ministry well and truly into the background.
I suppose I re-entered my spiritual journey about 2 years ago at a time I was feeling particularly detached from God. I attended a prayer meeting which, although I didn’t realize it at the time, was to become particularly significant. Our priest prayed a very moving prayer for me which left me with a wonderful sense of peace. About a year after this I was inspired to write a song. Now although I can sing and play the violin, I have never attempted to write music before. A friend of mine told me there was a song in me to which I replied don’t be daft. However a few weeks later “The light at the end of the Tunnel” was written. It relates to a moving experience I had while visiting a waterfall where I felt the presence of God coming through in nature. My 2nd song” Holy Spirit come down from above” was written a few weeks later and relates directly to the prayer which was prayed for me a year earlier.
I mentioned the above as I feel these events were a huge influence on the rebirth of my spiritual journey .As I worked my way through the course I began to appreciate that life is filled with co-incidences and I gradually became aware of different situations occurring at appropriate times and to trust my intuition. I have always had dreams but never paid much attention to their content. However I have come to realize that our dreams have meaning and together with our intuition can guide us to our destinies. When I kept a record of co-incidences for a week I was amazed at how they linked up to my dreams and intuition.
I had always found meditation difficult but was able to create my own scared space and I now retreat to it often when I need “time out”. I became aware of the energy present all around us and often take time out to reconnect with the energy field. I find this particularly helpful when I need to face stressful situations which would leave me shaking and quivering as I realized how other people can drain our energy from us and instill in us feelings of fear and negativity: feelings such as hate greed anxiety, jealously. I overcame these feelings by learning to analyze situations by using the parent, child, adult theory and can now face up to these situations which I would have previously run away from. An example of this is how two years ago I was asked to set up and run a music group in the church. There was a lot of opposition to this from the rather aging congregation and the very traditional church choir. I have to admit to quaking in my boots at the time. However after a year or more of opposition, by using the material I’ve learned on this course I managed, much to my own surprise, to deal with the conflict and move this project on. Now the music group is very much a part of worship in the church playing at 2 services a months bringing in more contemporary, spiritual feel to our worship.
I gradually began to realize that by replacing negative emotions with positive emotions you replace the feelings of fear hate greed etc with feelings of love empathy joy admiration etc. This guides us to a place of love and healing in our hearts and makes us one with the universe. I feel spiritually is not connected to any one religion but is a way of life that brings us to a feeling of wholeness and peace within oneself thus enabling us to live a fulfilling life of love ,compassion, and being non-judgmental towards others.
I still have along way to go on my journey and my prayer is that God will guide and protect me along the way continuing to fill me with spiritual awareness to enable me to reach my destiny.
Rev. Julia Clark
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