Difficult for me to understand...

Since I was a little girl, I've had a sense of the presence of God. I remember being upset and having a sense of Him holding me. Or simply laying in bed and talking to Him. And overall this deep, deep love for Jesus. (I've been told as an adult that not everyone has this experience. But, it is my experience and the only perspective I have.)

This week, I read David-the-Artist-Pastor's blog which quoted Thomas Aquinas who said, “If you comprehend God, He is not God.” And while I know that my understanding of God is wholly incomplete, the past two years have been extremely bending. And the past three months even more so.

A little backstory to give context...

Just before I started this blog--something bad happened that caused a tremendous amount of grief. And while there are lots of reasons not to blog the details, I have written about the fallout.

Healing has come in bits and pieces and almost always through people. Sunny unknowingly relieved the loss of creativity in her gift of the windows. The women in theophostic prayer were instrumental healing the panic attacks and nightmares. Nancy-the-Insightful gifted understanding and John has held me when I was too broken to speak. Yet through all of the beautiful gifts across the past two years, the one glaring omission has been a loss of the personal presence of God. Many times I have cried and said to John..."I miss Him."

And so I've waited. And searched. And sometimes simply sat in the floor and wept because I couldn't understand why God would let something that bad happen then just disappear. In the past two years, I've caught glimpses of that sense of presence, but nothing that feels the same as it has been my whole life. And oddly there has been a physical pain that accompanied the lack. Sometimes on high and sometimes low, but always, always there.

A few months ago--when my friend Carole and I went to the Eco-Fair--there was a booth for a Sahaja meditation center. Except that no one was sitting cross-legged. Instead, a man was doing hand motions behind individuals sitting in chairs. Anyone who knows me, knows that I tend to get deeply interested in things that capture my attention, study them endlessly then move to the next deeply engaging subject. I was fascinated to watch the man to learn what he was doing. We talked and he explained about the way energy flows through the body to heal it and that the energy needs to be in balance. What he said drew me. When things on your insides aren't completely right, you look for healing.

That night, John and I talked about it a lot before I deciding it was worth checking out.

It's a weird thing to visit somewhere that you have no experience. I walked in. Figured out I should take my shoes off and was met by a beautiful woman with a lilting accent and joyful laugh. We talked for a bit, then were joined by another girl. When we realized no one else was going to show up, we started.

Barbara walked us through a guided meditation. It was simple and relaxing. Looking at her watch she said, that we had about fifteen minutes left and asked if I wanted her to "work on me." I wasn't sure exactly what that meant, but I assumed the same hand motions as the man had done at the eco-fair.

I don't have words to explain what happened as Barbara and Leti "worked" on me, but I felt something fix inside me. It was dramatic. Not only did the physical pain wash away but I could completely feel God's presence for the first time in two years. All of a sudden I didn't "miss" Him. I could feel Him. Just like always.

I can't explain it. It is very much the kind of healing experience described in the New Testament when Jesus laid hands on people. And so I've gone back. Deeply, deeply grateful. All of this completely outside of my understanding.

The whole experience puts me in a weird place with my belief systems. After all, Sahaja doesn't only worship Jesus Christ, but they also believe in the whole Hindu pantheon and in the divinity of the woman who founded it. What do I do with that?

As I've prayed about it I keep coming across words of Jesus like "a good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit" and the words of the blind man when questioned by the religious leaders (Jn. 9) plays a striking chord in my head: "Whether he is a sinner or not, I don't know. One thing I do know. I was blind but now I see."

For a blog that is on a list of "alternative Christian" sites there are probably a lot of reasons not to tell this story. Except that this blog is an adventure in authenticity for me.

As with most stories, it keeps unfolding...

It just doesn't have a predictable storyline.