If you have ever heard the voice of God, once you acknowledge it, it is unmistakable. I am confident that I have missed it many times. I am confident that guardian angels have guided and protected me many times, times that I know of and acknowledge, and times that I have ignored out of fear of looking directly in the face of divine providence. On one occasion, I acknowledged the conscious contact with God, accepted that the profound voice was not one that came from me, and realized it was a message he had attempted to communicate to me many times. In the depths of pain and confusion, remorse and anger, baffled by grief and experiencing first hand the “wrestling” with God described in the garden of Gethsemane, in that moment, when I heard the voice of God speaking directly to me, everything changed.
I changed, the circumstances changed, my ability to receive grace and miracles, and responsibility for myself and only the things within my control, everything, changed. I have learned that our pain is a gift. That gratitude and acceptance are the greatest powers we posses, and that nothing, absolutely nothing, is within my control or direction. It that acknowledgment of my own powerlessness, I tapped into the peace and grace that had always been available yet overlooked in my life.
We each have our own journey.
My plan, my intended destiny, as well as any self righteous good wishes I may have for another, are irrelevant. God has a plan for each of us. We all have our own reckoning to do. At the end of our days on earth, we each stand alone. Accountable for our actions and reactions to the world we have experienced, with no advocate, no scapegoat, alone, accountable. I can not control or determine anyone else’s journey, make it easier from my point of view, no matter how altruistic, selfless or practical my intentions.
In the realization that pain is a gift, that mercy visits us in tragedy, that our human experience is limited by dimension, I learned my self righteous good intentions are not helpful. They are interference, intrusion and interruption in the journey of another, and that such efforts are not necessarily well spent. Because ultimately, I am powerless over others.
Such a simple concept. Taught and propounded by Viktor Frankl. I have loved the concept of: the only thing one can control is one’s response to his environment. A laudable concept, but as I have discovered, a difficult one to live.
There are different kinds of “knowing”. To know something intellectually, as in facts and figures, from books, history and math. To know, as in to meet someone, to be familiar, to understand, to feel and comprehend.
Now I know, more than intellectually. I am powerless over others, as well as much of what occurs in the world. As I let those things and my efforts to control, go, I tap into the power of the Universe through a gracious and loving God. Our ultimate power lies in our surrender.
