Title: Waiting for Heaven: Finding Beauty in the Pain and the Struggle Author: Heather Gillis Genre: Religion / Memoir / Spirituality Publisher: WestBow Press Publication Date: March 20, 2014 ISBN: 978-1-4908-2786-5 Life can sometimes lead us to unexpected places, to only leave us broken, desperate, and hurting. Heather Gillis and her husband, Mac, waited in anticipation for the birth of their third child. Like many Christian couples, their dreams and expectations in marriage, parenthood, and daily life developed differently than they’d planned, and left them grieving a life that would never be. Their journey gives insight into a new normal and uncovers the stepping stones of the healing process. In their process, they re- discovered God’s abounding love through their experiences of joy, heartbreak, and purpose. Heather reaches out to parents around the globe to speak openly about being a wife, mother, friend, relative, or stranger during life-changing trials and devastating struggles. In God’s love, she has found beauty in the midst of pain and struggle, as well as peace in His presence on Earth while waiting for Heaven. Book Excerpt: Life is not about how comfortable I can be; to expect life to be comfortable is unrealistic. I’m not exempt from the harshness or pain of this world. I have realized since Bowen’s passing that there are no guarantees in life; to think otherwise leads to disappointment. When I was pregnant, I assumed Bowen would be healthy. I assumed that when I left the house, I would return, unharmed. I assumed for some reason I would make it through life unscathed; I never thought I would be writing these words. We can do all the right things in life, but that doesn’t guarantee us rewards or benefits in this life. We did not choose the path we are walking, but God willing, we will endure what comes our way and to where God wants us to go. We can have all the plans in the world but God is in the driver’s seat, and God knows what he is doing; we just have to trust him. Uncomfortable situations have taught me to trust in God, and I have learned more than I ever thought I would; and still am. Purchase Book at: Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Waiting-Heaven-Finding-Beauty-Struggle/dp/1490827862 Barnes & Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/waiting-for-heaven-heather-gillis/1119019515 Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/21809735-waiting-for-heaven
Meet Heather Gillis. In her book, Waiting for Heaven, Heather recalls the story of her infant son, Bowen, and her family's journey with polycystic kidney disease. Through Bowen's short life and death, she and her husband, Mac, discovered the true meaning of God’s love and grace. By telling her poignant story in the book and speaking to groups, Heather hopes she can help others through the challenges of loss and devastation; giving hope that their can be joy and happiness again.
After Bowen's death, Heather founded Bowen's Hope, a ministry serving kidney disease kids and their families, especially those getting dialysis treatments at Phoenix Children's Hospital. She's also involved with Camp Maska for dialysis patients in Arizona, and has raised over $50,000 for the PKD Foundation. In addition, Heather volunteers at the Ronald McDonald House, an organization serving meals and providing temporary housing to families with children in the hospital.
Heather works part time as a Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist. She and Mac have two living children, Brooklyn and Blake. With a serving heart, Heather’s passions are her family and helping others.
Richard Louis Keller was born in Newark, NJ in 1955 and grew up in Middletown Township (NJ). He graduated from Montclair State College in 1978 with a degree in Broadcasting. Rich gave his life to Christ in 1979. Since his conversion he has spent time ministering for the Lord in various capacities. God gave Rich the gift of communication. He uses that gift by writing a daily devotional blog and has had two other books published.
BLURB: Indian nationalist leader Mahatma Gandhi has been quoted as saying “I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” This is a sad indictment of the Christian community as a whole. Is it true? Are believers in Christ the reason people keep their distance from Judeo-Christian beliefs and the God we embrace? I feel there’s no question that we’re partially to blame. In this book I touch on a wide variety of topics, but in the end call out Christians to immerse themselves in a time of reassessment as we all strive to be more genuine and consistent in our faith.
COVER: As opposed to the cover for Keller's other book, There Are No McDonald's in Heaven: Waiting on God, which I feel is a good match, I have to admit I'm not particularly fond of this one. For a serious book on an important topic, the light tone this cover portrays doesn't quite hit the mark for me.
FIRST CHAPTER: The first chapter of this thought-provoking title asks, "Is there a problem with the way Christians are portraying the gospel to the unsaved today? Are we driving people away?" It talks about how Christians interact with nonbelievers, in addition to discussing free will and how our approach to presenting the gospel can be very different than the way Christ did.
KEEP READING: From the first moment I heard about this book, I was intrigued. As Christians, we are charged by Christ to "go and make disciples of all nations" (Matt 28:19). But how can we do that if we use the wrong approach? Already a few chapters into Man's Rejection of God: Who's Responsible? by the time I write this, I like Keller's style. He opens chapter one with a story, followed by Gandhi's quote, then leads right into the question about Christians possibly driving people away. Some of the words can be tough to hear, especially if you feel like he's talking directly to you. On the flip side, he discusses the difficulty in emulating Christ, and how our conversion into a new person in Christ might be instantaneous but that our actual transformation takes time. So, you see a healthy blend of challenging moments and encouraging words. This book definitely is providing some food for thought for my Christian journey. I'm eager to continue.
Paperback: 200 pages (printed)/161 (digital) Publisher: WestBow Press, a division of Thomas Nelson Publishing (March 2014) Paperback ISBN-10: 1490821481 ISBN-13: 978-1490821481 Hardcover ISBN-10: 149082149X ISBN-13: 978-1490821498 Kindle: 9781490821474/ASIN: B00I5076TU
I have been paid a fee to promote this book through a virtual book tour with Pump Up Your Book. That fee, however, did not include any type of review. This review contains my honest opinions, which I have not been compensated for in any way.
This is a powerful memoir of a near-death experience. After a Native American sweat lodge, the author loses control of his body and then his life. He begins a passage that leads to a personal hell. He discovers a way to escape and emerges into an amazing exploration of the soul’s journey. In this intense adventure, there are insights into stages of consciousness and encounters of blissful perfection. This spiritual, inspirational book is meant to be an aid to removing the universal fear of the final journey we are all taking.
First Chapter:
I was with a high school buddy who told me that his greatest fear is dying and death. I wanted to comfort him. I thought if I shared my personal experience to that ‘undiscovered country,’ it could relieve some of his anxiety. And that is what I want to do for all those who read this. I’d like to make it easier to navigate where we all are headed.
***** Death is not the end of being. *****
It was the evening of a cold Sunday on the thirteenth day of December in Los Angeles, California, The United States of America, planet earth, the Milky Way. It was the day before my birthday.
My whole body was sweating. Every pore was oozing. I had never been this hot. I could barely breathe. Would I survive?
I was in a sweat lodge. These ‘sweats’ are purification rituals where you join a group of people, often strangers, and you all enter a dark enclosed space that gets very hot.
I had done sweats before. In the darkness I had shared wishes, confronted issues of life and death, and I had sweat. A lot. In these previous sweats, I had been able to deal with the discomfort. Later I learned about an infamous case where people died in a sweat that was improperly prepared, poorly led and overcrowded. I wonder if I would have gone to this particular sweat had I known people died in that one. But you can die anywhere.
Sweats were always a test for me. A lot of my life has been about passing tests.
The test of a sweat is to be present. In the heat. To be honest. In the heat.
I was in one of those transitional phases in life where I figured I might learn something from this kind of uncomfortable encounter. It seemed like a good way to sort some things out. Join in a circle of other humans in the dark. In the heat.
I had been working in the film world as a director and I had a fairly successful career up to then. But I was troubled about my future. Earlier that afternoon, I had attended a party in Topanga Canyon with a friendly crowd of Hollywood movie co-workers and ‘wannabes’ and a number of ‘has-beens.’ It was Christmas time in Los Angeles and it was all good cheer, jingle bells and twinkling palm trees.
At the party I talked about the film project I was working on and others talked about theirs. As the sun started to cast shadows, I knew it was time to move on. I made a circuit through the rooms, saying my goodbyes and thanking my hostess. She wrote a feature I had directed some years back. We liked each other, even though we rarely stayed in contact. That was the way of things for me in the movie business. I would get close to my crew and cast when working on a film. We would become a family; but after the film was done, the relationships would dissolve. If I ran into someone years later, there might be a hug and a few shared memories, and then we would drift away to our separate lives.
I climbed into my white 1981 Avanti and drove off. I liked this car. It was a classic coupe with a sleek design and red interior upholstery. Now I wasn’t a car person and could barely fix a flat tire, but when I saw my first Studebaker, I became a fan. This handsome vehicle was its last iteration. It got a lot of attention on the street. I liked to tell the story of how it was made.
The great industrial designer Raymond Loewy had his associates conceive the car in two weeks. He isolated them in a desert town where they were denied drink and women. The result was an auto that has feminine curves. It was also a car that had saved my life once. A torrential rain had turned Los Angeles streets slippery. I was driving a curved road in Beverly Hills, and suddenly the Avanti went into a 360 degree spin sliding toward a telephone pole on the driver’s side.
This was going to be bad. But to my surprise, the car stopped inches short of crashing. I breathed easier and was very grateful. Whatever and whoever was watching over me had decided not to kill me then. I had heard that you have a number of close calls before your actual death. This was one of mine. There were others.
So here I was now, in my Avanti, driving fast along the Pacific Coast Highway. I was heading into the Malibu Mountains. The route was lonely, full of curves, and sparsely inhabited. I was already late. It was a bad habit of mine back then.
My mind wandered and worried. The other sweats I had done had been strenuous and unpredictable. I’d seen things in the blackness.
Often the heat had been so heavy, I had wanted to leave before the ceremonies were over. In the past I had stayed to avoid the embarrassment of what I thought would be seen as failure. How would I handle this next sweat? Another test.
Thoughts of what might occur in this sweat pre-occupied me. I suddenly realized I was lost.
I had passed the junction for the turn off and gone way too far up the road. I pulled over and switched directions. I headed back down the mountain more slowly, paying attention to where I was.
Would I find the way in? Around the next corner, a small signpost pointed to a narrow dirt road. It read The Wright Land. This was where I was supposed to go.
The Avanti, somewhat of a low rider, wasn’t meant for rough roads. It bumped over the pits and rocks through a narrow passageway that led up a hill. Enormous red boulders threatened to scrape the doors. I bounced around until reaching a crest, which opened up to a large plateau below. In the distance was a dramatic cliff that dropped off into the ocean.
Vehicles were lined up on the grassy field below. Clearly, the other participants had already arrived. I drove down the hill and parked. I got out and hurriedly grabbed some towels from my back seat. The sun had not completely set, so even though late, I knew there was still some time before the ritual would actually begin.
I decided to walk up a little mound next to an unfinished home on the cliff. The structure was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and belonged to his grandchildren who owned the property, hence The Wright Land. On this knoll, the ground was marked out with white stones in the shape of a prayer wheel with its spokes extending in the cardinal directions. I stepped into the circle and sat on the cool ground. I was trying to center and calm myself.
The sun was creating a golden red sky. I tried to slow my breathing. Get peaceful. It didn’t work. I was still a little anxious. I stood up.
I turned, walked down the hill, and passed a lily pond with croaking frogs. I hiked up an incline through red tan sandstone outcropping. Behind these rocks was the sweat lodge.
The structure looked like a sphere cut in half. Created by bending and interweaving branches, it was about six feet high in the center. It was covered with a variety of faded quilts, so that it looked like a big colorful upside down teacup. The coverings are used to keep in the heat and the dark.
In front of the lodge was an open round fire pit filled with logs and thirty-six football-sized volcanic rocks. A shallow dirt channel led from this fire pit to the lodge. It’s called the ‘spirit pathway.’ You are not supposed to step over this channel which is as a sacred space for the heated rocks to enter the lodge. You avoid crossing the path to keep the energy flowing. That’s how I understood it. No human interference.
Like many lodges, this one had a small entrance flap. In front of it was a collection of various totems including a carved whale bone, eagle and owl feathers, an indigenous medicine pipe, a Yaqui Indian rosario which is a beaded paper flower necklace, and a reindeer horn from Russia.
Many of these symbols resonated with me. Some recalled my Russian ancestors. I had learned the language while in high school. Much of the culture appealed to me including the authors Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Gogol, the music of Tchaikovsky, balalaikas, icons, vodka, lacquer boxes, the revolution and the genius film director and writer Sergei Eisenstein.
He was my inspiration to become a filmmaker. Of course, there were the negative Russian associations as well, like the slaughtering Cossacks and the pogroms persecuting the Jews. This was one of the reasons my grandparents left that country.
The owl feathers also resonated. This bird had been a totem animal for me. An image of an owl had appeared during a previous sweat. My eyes had been open in the darkness of that sweat, and though the space was pitch black, I saw this owl clearly. Later I looked up the owl’s significance in other cultures. In one tradition, it is a messenger from unknown worlds, including the world of the dead, whatever that was.
The totem of a whale bone reminded me of the stunning songs of humpback whales I had heard on a vinyl record back in New York when I was a graduate film student. Their otherworldly deep ocean sounds suggested a hidden knowledge. These giants possessed a long distance communication ability way beyond our comprehension.
All these items - the whale bone, the feathers - had been brought to the sweat by my friend Michael. He had introduced me to these Native American traditions.
I met Michael when I was approached to be the director of an ill-fated movie about a clown who was imprisoned with children in a Nazi concentration camp.
As we exchanged histories, it turned out that a month before, unknown to each other, we had been at the same Yaqui Easter Indian ceremony outside of Tucson where participants wore masks and mixed Catholicism with Indian myths. The theme of that ritual was death and resurrection. We were among the few white people in attendance.
Title: My Death: A Personal Guidebook Genre: Spiritual/Self-Help Author: Jeremy Kagan Publisher: Balboa Press Pages: 124 Language: English Format: eBook
Discuss this book in our PUYB Virtual Book Club at Goodreads by clicking HERE.
Jeremy Kagan is an internationally recognized director/writer/producer of feature films and television and a tenured professor. Some of his feature credits include the box-office hits HEROES, the political thriller THE BIG FIX, THE CHOSEN (2 time Grand Prize winner),and THE JOURNEY OF NATTY GANN (Gold Prize Moscow Film Festival). Among his many television shows are KATHERINE: the Making of an American Revolutionary and HBO’s CONSPIRACY: THE TRIAL OF THE CHICAGO 8 (ACE Award for Best Dramatic Special). His film ROSWELL,THE UFO CONSPIRACY garnered a Golden Globe nomination and he directed the pilot for the hit series DR. QUINN: MEDICINE WOMAN. Other television films include, for Showtime COLOR OF JUSTICE about racism and BOBBIE’S GIRL about a lesbian couple and CROWN HEIGHTS about the 1991 riots, which won the Humanitas Award for “affirming the dignity of every person.” Kagan has won an EMMY for Dramatic Series Directing and directed “West Wing” and Spielberg’s ”Taken.” He has made films for The Doe Fund which is the most successful program in America helping the homeless and for The Bioneers which organizes leaders in ecology and social justice, and TreePeople. Professor Kagan teaches graduate courses at USC in directing and has created the Change Making Media Lab, which has made projects on cancer prevention, obesity and ADHD. Kagan has served as the Artistic Director of Robert Redford’s Sundance Institute and is on the National Board of the Directors Guild and Chairperson of its Special Projects. His books DIRECTORS CLOSE UP, Vol. 1 & 2, are published by Scarecrow Press. A Graduate Fellow of the American Film Institute, he has an M.F.A. from NYU and a B.A. from Harvard University. He has taught master seminars on filmmaking in Hong Kong, Hamburg, Hanoi, France, Lebanon, Israel, Ireland and India. You can visit Jeremy Kagan’s website at www.theneardeathandlifeofjeremykagan.com.
Designed for Relationshipis a Christian living/spiritual relationship book from T.J. MacLeslie. I received a copy of this book from the author's publicist.
BLURB: Mankind has always struggled with the big questions: Why are we here? What is life all about? The search for answers has led in many directions, not all of them helpful. In this age, we are inundated with information, but this flood of knowledge has not necessarily produced wisdom. We find answers to the really important questions as elusive as ever.
It really is all about relationship! This is the open secret, hidden in plain sight all along.
COVER: This is a beautiful cover. It's peaceful and relaxing. The scenery is lovely. I have to admit that when I first glanced at it I thought it was more suited toward a fantasy novel than a non-fiction offering, but it does flow in nicely with the Christian journey mentioned within these pages.
FIRST CHAPTER: This chapter opens with a powerful retelling of the prodigal son. Then the author goes on to explain about the Trinity and how God wants us in relationship with Him.
KEEP READING: Definitely. My synopsis of the first chapter is very simplistic, because there is so much to this chapter, and I don't want to give too much away. This is one of the most powerful retellings of the parable of the prodigal son I have ever read, and I believe the main reason is something the author mentions during this first chapter: too often we focus on the story of the younger son who took his riches and then ran off, instead of seeing this story from the point of view of all three people. By seeing this parable from a different perspective, it becomes an even more powerful story, because as the author indicates, each son became a prodigal in his own way.
In Designed for Relationship, author T.J. MacLeslie's discussion on the Trinity gave me pause. He goes back to Genesis to remind the reader that God exists as a "Them as much as a Him." In the creation story from Genesis 1:26 it says, "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness;'..." I In all the years I have read and reread the Creation story, I missed God's reference to the Godhead here. And now I wonder how much else I might have missed.
As the chapter moves along, the author begins his discussion on God wanting to be in a relationship with us. As the Godhead, They created us to be relational beings in Their likeness. The ending of this chapter includes discussion questions for reflection.
I was so moved by the first chapter of this book, I can't wait to continue reading.
I received a copy of this book from the author's publicist. This author is currently on tour with Pump Up Your Book. I have been paid a fee to promote this book as part of the tour. No portion of this fee included a review of any kind. This review contains my honest opinions, which I have not been compensated for in any way.
"If we were to consider the towering crises faced by the 21st century and trace them to their roots, we would find that each of them leads back to the same cultural force: the one that tells us who we are. Our culture’s vision of what it means to be human seeps into us from infancy on – and it presents reality as a shattered world of bits and pieces that are organized by randomness and cannot be felt as a whole. By assuring us of that, our culture tacitly informs us that wholeness is a mere phantasm, something that we shouldn’t expect to feel even in the self. As a result, we persevere in our deeply divided lives, unaware that our failure to sense and live the wholeness of life is not germane either to our own nature, nor to that of the world itself. It is a product of who we have become, and the stories we have come to believe. Our culture has habituated to its own fictions. And we suffer from mistaken identity.
The foremost sign of the effect that our tenacious fictions have on us is to be seen in the way that we live in our heads, consider that to be entirely natural, and know of no other way of being. Living in our heads is actually so commonplace that we have come to consider it inevitable: after all, that’s where our brain is, it’s where we think – where else would our thinking self be centered? Culturally speaking, ‘living in the head’ is the elephant in the room: it dominates all we do, and no one seems willing to start a conversation about it.
New Self, New World initiates that conversation. The book shows that living in the head is a form of self-supervision by which we withdraw from the sensations of the body, thereby creating the essential division of self-consciousness. Standing apart from our being, spectators on our own lives, we intervene in them and resort to telling ourselves what to do. We are so constantly in that state of self-supervision that we habituate to it, which then makes us susceptible to supervision by others – so much so that we often barely notice when it happens: we are supervised in the workplace by rigid hierarchies and work stations; on the streets by sidewalks and signs and traffic lights; in our homes by television shows that cue our every response with laugh tracks and mood music and emotive, unreal acting; and in our personal expectations by the relentless, subliminal blandishments of our consumerist society.
As New Self, New World shows, such supervision is a form of tyranny, and results from a profound male bias in our culture that virtually disregards being and obsesses over control: we are always doing, planning, sorting, judging, calculating, out-thinking, and we provide almost no allowance for being. In our individual, daily lives, we have all but forgotten how to just ‘be’: doing overrides being through all the moments of our waking hours, supervising thought, word and deed. That male bias has been fostered in our culture over six thousand years – since its inception in the Neolithic Revolution – and New Self, New World tracks it by noting how, over time, the experience of the self in the body has changed.
To understand that change, it is necessary to understand that the body has two brains. That is not a metaphoric claim, but a physiological fact. We all know about the cranial brain – it is the one we mistakenly refer to it as the brain, suggesting it stands alone; but there is another brain, independent of the cranial brain, that lies in our gut: the enteric brain. The cranial brain is associated with idea and analysis and the vision that guides our actions; as such, it is the center of our male intelligence, and so too the source of our doing. The enteric brain is associated with nourishment and integration and the processes of life; as such, it is the center of our female intelligence, and so too of our being.
New Self, New World looks to language and cultural beliefs to show that in the early Neolithic era, the thinking self was experienced in the belly. As people increasingly identified themselves as ‘doers’, that center migrated towards the head. By 800 BC it had arrived in the chest area, and by 350 BC it had taken up residence in the head. As our lives have grown increasingly abstract since then, it has increasingly consolidated itself there. And that consolidation of the thinking self in the head is the experience by which we in the 21st century identify what it is to be human.
If New Self, New World is unflinching in its assessment of the story by which we live our lives, and of the impoverishment into which that story is carrying us, it is nonetheless a book of profound hope. It gives the reader a very practical set of principles by which they can quiet the incessant chatter of the supervisor in the head and return to the genius of their integrated intelligence. And it shows how that genius awakens us to the sacred axis within the body that brings head and belly into correspondence, and is hungry to live in the present and find guidance there. Healing the crisis of identity into which our culture has plunged is ultimately a personal journey and will be different for each of us; but it is the most gratifying journey anyone can take, for when the self is renewed, so too is the world."
Read the Reviews!
“... an exceptionally important book ...”
Andrew Harvey
"... Highly recommended."
Larry Dossey, MD
“This is an exceptionally important book and should be read by anyone concerned with a possible human future. New Self, New World combines profound spiritual intelligence with an exhilarating range of reference, and is written with urgent passion and great aesthetic delicacy. The time has come for the message of this book, and there will be many who will hear it and rejoice in it.”
Andrew Harvey, Scholar, Mystic, Author of Son of Man, The Return of the Mother, The Way of Passion
Philip Shepherd currently lives in Toronto. He traveled extensively after leaving his home in Canada at age 18. Upon his return, he founded an interdisciplinary theatre company, worked as a corporate coach, taught creativity workshops, penned a documentary for CBC television and wrote several plays. He is the editor of The Compleat Art Critic and has played lead roles in several films. A faculty member of the Institute for Sacred Activism in Chicago, Shepherd is the director of Reactor Core Theatre, which puts the philosophy of his book into practice. His website is http://www.philipshepherd.com and his fan page on Facebook can be found at http://www.facebook.com/NewSelfNewWorld.
As Christians, our spiritual journey constantly brings us back to Jerusalem, to the death and resurrection of Jesus, which gives meaning to all that we do. Strengthened by God’s Spirit we join on the walk to wherever, we share meals, and we tell our stories. We remember. God, as we go along our life’s way, will help us to be aware of His presence with us. He will open our eyes, makes us expectant, eager to be met by Him. We will never complete our spiritual journey.
Quite often people do not know how to develop a relationship with God, in order to be able to feel God’s love for them and to be able to share that love with others. They need to be given the tools necessary to develop a relationship with God and to understand how that relationship is celebrated in community.
Through the development of three two-day workshops, I have presented a program that will show readers and participants how to recognize God in their lives and to feel His love. I have designed these workshops to help people to continue their spiritual journey to greater connection with God. Finally, I have created these workshops to help others to see the importance of the Christian faith as a spiritual roadmap to be used on the path to God.
"Where is God in my Life? Is full of rich resources of material that will help others discover God. I recommend it for retreats and small groups." --Healthy Spirituality
“Where is God in Your Life? Do you feel stuck in your quest to know God? Have you been around a person whose pores breathe perfect and radiant peace? Fear does not define any part of their life; they are not driven toward recognition yet they clearly and brightly reflect God so that you can’t help but notice them. You may pray, go to a church, and have a great family, but you know you don’t feel satisfied on the same level as your glowing friend. Where is God in your Life: Three Retreats in Christian Spirituality by Susan M Provost, a new book available on Amazon, offers readers a pathway to reach a new depth in their relationship with God.”
--K. Tomsic, Amazon Reviewer
Three Easy Ways You Can Begin Recognizing God in Your Daily Life by Sue Provost
1. First, you can find God through prayer. Ask God quietly and frequently, "God, what do you want me to do with my life?" God knows you best. He created you, uniquely. It is not likely that Jesus is going to walk up to you like the apostles and say directly, "Come, follow me." Instead, God will guide you through prayer and experiences. Pray quietly, pray often, "God, what do you want me to do with my life?" Communication is not so much what we have to give God, but is more a living with God, a meeting with one who loves us unconditionally, a personal relationship in which it is truly God who does the giving, the giving of himself for us. The experience of being fully present in this personal relationship with God could be described as an altered state of awareness. Communication with God is essential, just as it is in any relationship. Communication is how we make the connection and build our human relationships; we learn to connect the same way with God through the communication called prayer.
2. Second, we know of God through faith. We trust in God’s goodness because we can see the beauty of God’s creation. We can also see the beauty of God in each other. We are all creations of God and God wants us to know how much God loves us. To feel the warmth of God’s love, we must open ourselves (just a little) so that God can take hold of our hearts and help us understand the depth of God’s love. God will help us if only we ask. We do not need to find God; we only need to recognize that God is already in our lives. God is continually working in our lives, but many of us do not feel or see this work. What is offered is the humble quest of a God who, in the person of Jesus, comes to reveal His love and beg our love in return.
3. Third, it can be difficult to encounter God while the focus of our lives is on the importance of earthly power and possessions. We cannot notice God working in our lives when we do not take the time to stop and notice anything. We do not know how to step out of the world of progress. We are moving so fast through our lives that we take no time to notice what is happening around us when the noticing is not necessary to fulfill our goal. In essence, we are programmed not to accept who we are, but we are driven to judge others and ourselves by earthly success, productivity, and accumulation of things. Consequently, we have no real appreciation for others or ourselves. We are trapped in a jail of our own creation. Ask God to reveal himself to you. So, slow down, sit quietly, and listen and you will hear God speaking to you. You will feel God’s presence with you. The more you do that, the easier it becomes. God is always with you whether you recognize him or not.
Sue Provost is an active spiritual director, religious education teacher for both children and adults, and author of Where is God in Your Life? Three Retreats in Christian Spirituality. Her vocation in the practice of spiritual direction supports lay men and women, as well as clergy and those in ministry formation, in discernment of God’s gifting and God’s calling.
Sue has a master’s degree in Spiritual Formation from Regis University, in Denver Colorado. She is on the board of directors for the national headquarters of Small Christian Communities Connect (SCCC), as well as being the chairperson for SCC in her local parish. She is a teacher of religious education to both children and adults. She writes a daily blog about the message of Jesus on her site “Let Your Life Sing” . Sue goal in writing this daily blog is to bring awareness of God walking with us on this earthly journey.
Her desire is to share her understanding of God’s love with others, so they can experience what she found in her own relationship with God. She feels that communication with God through prayer is the essential element needed to be able to see God’s movement in their lives.
As Christians, our spiritual journey constantly brings us back to Jerusalem, to the death and resurrection of Jesus, which gives meaning to all that we do. Strengthened by God’s Spirit we join on the walk to wherever, we share meals, and we tell our stories. We remember. God, as we go along our life’s way, will help us to be aware of His presence with us. He will open our eyes, makes us expectant, eager to be met by Him. We will never complete our spiritual journey.
Quite often people do not know how to develop a relationship with God, in order to be able to feel God’s love for them and to be able to share that love with others. They need to be given the tools necessary to develop a relationship with God and to understand how that relationship is celebrated in community.
Through the development of three two-day workshops, I have presented a program that will show readers and participants how to recognize God in their lives and to feel His love. I have designed these workshops to help people to continue their spiritual journey to greater connection with God. Finally, I have created these workshops to help others to see the importance of the Christian faith as a spiritual roadmap to be used on the path to God.
“Where is God in Your Life? Do you feel stuck in your quest to know God? Have you been around a person whose pores breathe perfect and radiant peace? Fear does not define any part of their life; they are not driven toward recognition yet they clearly and brightly reflect God so that you can’t help but notice them. You may pray, go to a church, and have a great family, but you know you don’t feel satisfied on the same level as your glowing friend. Where is God in your Life: Three Retreats in Christian Spirituality by Susan M Provost, a new book available on Amazon, offers readers a pathway to reach a new depth in their relationship with God.”
--K. Tomsic, Amazon Reviewer
Sue Provost is an active spiritual director, religious education teacher for both children and adults, and author of Where is God in Your Life? Three Retreats in Christian Spirituality. Her vocation in the practice of spiritual direction supports lay men and women, as well as clergy and those in ministry formation, in discernment of God’s gifting and God’s calling.
Sue has a master’s degree in Spiritual Formation from Regis University, in Denver Colorado. She is on the board of directors for the national headquarters of Small Christian Communities Connect (SCCC), as well as being the chairperson for SCC in her local parish. She is a teacher of religious education to both children and adults. She writes a daily blog about the message of Jesus on her site “Let Your Life Sing” . Sue goal in writing this daily blog is to bring awareness of God walking with us on this earthly journey.
Her desire is to share her understanding of God’s love with others, so they can experience what she found in her own relationship with God. She feels that communication with God through prayer is the essential element needed to be able to see God’s movement in their lives.
Have you struggled with weight, wellness, addictions, relationships or work? This spiritually based book is set up with the idea that when you begin reading it, it will lull you comfortably into motivation and creating changes “now”.
Essentially, when you open the book you are on a journey, and as you read you have opportunities to “drive” or apply these ideas into your life. The book is set up as a no-excuses approach; if you say you believe in scripture you can’t pick and choose when to apply scripture to your life; it’s immediate connection, which also, helps take immediate action. You may be comfortably motivated but it may bring upheaval and some hard truth to swallow, so be prepared for no-excuses scripture to change your life.
…Abraham has three guests; one states that Sarah will have a son. She mocks him and then God announces that he will destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. Lot and his wife flee, are warned to not turn back, the wife turns back to view and turns to a pillar of salt.
Later, Abraham is asked to sacrifice his son, he makes all intention to do so, as much as bringing the knife above the boy on the alter he has made, and an angel appears to him to stop him; God responds with a promise to Abraham and in exchange for his obvious obedience, “All ye nations of earth shall bless themselves by your descendants”. Jacob collects statues and accuses others of stealing his idols.When we practice idolatry, we are really placing importance on something as it if were more important than it is. We do this with entertainers, celebrities; vain attempts at our external image and more. We also do not place the correct weight upon honesty.
…Some of us use truth in ways meant to hurt others; telling someone that they are inexperienced in spite of their good ideas and motivations because perhaps we fear them rising above us. Is it true that they may lack experience? Yes. But should that truth be used, or manipulated, to hold against them? Pick your battles and focus on truth and it’s part in peace. If you use truth as a weapon it loses authenticity.
These passages from the Torah or Bible can teach us so much about us and others. It is wonderful that Sarah welcomes visitors and drops what she is doing to feed them. We have food shelters now, but how often would we welcome people into our home in the same breadth?
We have lost the luster for personal relationships and outreach has become more contrived. When we say we volunteer we are correct; when we say we help others, we do so, but more superficially.
Our world has become idol worship focused and we show this even in outreach. We brag about helping others and it is an “event” to help others. How many of us help others in silence, without public reward or group effort?
We focus on the beauty around us; we want to look beautiful. We want our children to look beautiful. We buy jewelry and fancy clothes and cars, and continue to focus on the beauty of our homes and lives in almost every way.
Again, we focus on false idols. We say we don’t but we give a lot of time, energy and money for celebrities to live honored lives while we actually as a whole, give far less to those who are hungry.
So, we take something not beautiful. Dust and dirt. We try to rid ourselves of such. But without dirt, we would have no gardens, yards, playgrounds, and acres of forests. Dirt is really, more beautiful than a diamond.
So, in your worst moments, realize that you may be looking at the wrong focus, the wrong idol, and that maybe you are much more amazing than you think. Maybe the very people you should be focusing on, are the very people you’ve ignored.
When you look at yourself, before you leave your home, how much about you do you change? Or, how much do you wish you could change?
What are areas of your life you are 100% happy with?
When you think of things you feel are beautiful, what are they? Would you rather have a garden to feed you endlessly or riches to show off to others?
What are ways you can begin to see the light within yourself without comparing yourself to others?
What can you do, to create more personal relationships even while volunteering? How can you help those you volunteer for, to be touched by your generosity?
Read the Reviews!
“This book asks many questions and slyly leads one to understand that the only one who can answers these questions is you. It reminds you that there is a higher power who can help you through your life challenges, yet shows you that you need not believe in organized religion to believe in that higher power. It poses questions that, if you are honest enough to answer them, can help guide you to the self realization that your problems are not insurmountable and can be dealt with. This book is an easy read and extremely helpful. Thank you Michele for this wonderful book and for the inspiration to improve my life through the principles you have discussed."-A. Timothy Fowlar
Much like the patchwork of a quilt, Michele Paiva’s experiences seem topically eclectic but are sewn together by a love of empowerment, justice and spirituality. A former broadcast news anchor, broadcast reporter, telesales spokesperson, television choreographer, print journalist, editor, yoga therapist, dance and yoga studio owner, myoskeletal therapist and legal advocate; Paiva has been dedicated to bringing a voice to others and helping others achieve. A former Mrs. Pennsylvania, a title won on a dare and at first in jest, Paiva is down to earth and approachable, and credits her diverse background as a way that she reaches wide demographics. Paiva enjoys collecting I Dream of Jeannie memorabilia, cooking, spending time with family and friends and honestly, being a couch potato when not being a yogi or hiking. Paiva lives in the suburbs of Philadelphia with her family and three rescue dogs who have taken over her world.
Paiva can be reached at www.michelepaiva.com where there are also free downloadable recipes and more.
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