God and Grace Endure By Rev. Rhoni Tretsven
Shift and change are part of our human experience as a soul here on this earthly plane. Many of us anticipate change when we flip over the calendar and see not just the month has changed but the numbers representing the year we are now entering. I have often stared at that blank January page and then quickly flipped through the rest of the pages, wondering what events will shift and change within me, not just my existence of what I name as a life lived. Beginning the new year I have written promises to myself, resolutions and half of them already are up for renegotiation. I have experienced a change in leadership not just nationally, but locally and set the intention to trust the process of these changes. When my life has felt uncomfortable, it is because I know there is a transformation that is wanting to give birth to a new idea, or a new lens of life to look through and be a witness to. All too often I know each of us has felt that uncomfortable and painful poke of what is trying to emerge, through us as us. Instead of pushing it away or down and saying to myself, “not now I’m not ready” Unconditional love of Spirit/God initiates the process of, “oh yes you are.” This is when we surrender and open our hearts and truly sense the reality of God. The unseen in the seen, love. All that is transposing, transforming, and transitioning for my highest good and yours as well. God’s grace endures.
One of my “teachers”, philosopher Paul Tillich said, “Grace strikes us when we are in great pain and restlessness. It strikes us when we walk through the dark valley of a meaningless and empty life. It strikes us when we feel that our separation is deeper than usual, because we have violated another life, a life which we loved, or from which we were estranged. It strikes us when our disgust for our own being, our indifference, our weakness, our hostility, and our lack of direction and composure have become intolerable to us. It strikes us when, year after year, the longed-for perfection of life does not appear, when the old compulsions reign within us as they have for decades, when despair destroys all joy and courage.”
The essence and great power of love I will name as God is always for us and never against us. Grace is a good and God thing when it strikes us. Grace is our continual conversation with It. Grace strikes us in multiple ways but the easiest is to simply embrace God’s acceptance of us. Each one of us IS accepted as a soul and as a continual presence of how God receives us unconditionally. God does not withhold acceptance, It is I, until some moment when I finally change in some way. God accepts and loves me right where I am, now, and It is the love that continues so that I may lean into it, rest if I have to, and begin again.
“Sometimes at that moment a wave of light breaks into our darkness, and it is as though a voice were saying, ‘You are accepted. You are accepted, accepted by that which you do not know. Do not ask for the name now; perhaps you will find it later. Do not try to do anything now, perhaps later you will do much. Do not seek for anything; do not perform anything; do not intend anything. Simply accept the fact that you are accepted!’ If that happens to us, we experience grace. After such an experience we may not be better than before, and we may not believe more than before. But everything is transformed” *
I ask that we all take a few moments this week to be in the silence and allow Spirit/God to speak through us and take/receive a spiritual inventory of our conditions for a life well lived. To breathe and breathe into our life and the possibilities ever before us.
For Reflection:
• How have you experienced God’s gracious presence in this difficult year?
• When you thought you were separated from it, how did it show up for you as love?
• How has God/Spirit shown up?
• What have you experienced, or what has been demonstrated that you always know God is in and through you?
• Why not talk honestly with God about anything in our life, you can talk to God and It will always give you an answer.
Thank you for all that you are, and all that you are becoming.
*Paul Tillich, philosopher
In gratitude and love, Rev. Rhoni