God, Yes I Am Going There.

The concept of God or a higher power is a funny thing. I tell people I have to go to church every Sunday because I am such a sinner. Which is only partly true. The main reason I go is because I like it. I really and truly like it. I was sent to Catholic school through sixth grade by my atheist father and agnostic mother (which is another whole blog but for now just go with it) where the seed of belief was planted. Not to sound cliché but it has been a lifelong journey to find my happy place with God. I now call myself a Christian which makes me cringe involuntarily every time I say it or write it. Because I feel like when I say that I am a Christian that what other people are hearing is: “and whatever the hell it is that you are doing, if it doesn’t involve Jesus, then it is wrong.” Can I get an Amen?

So let me be clear – however you choose to get your groove on with your higher power or not I respect it. Okay unless you are one of those freaky end of days folks with pallets of food in your basement and gas masks hanging in your garage. That, I think, is a bit overboard. But for the most part whatever you’ve got going on I’m good with it.

Because as working mothers we need a higher power to go to when we are in that dark place. And by dark place I mean at 9pm when you are fighting with your exhausted child about bed time or homework or not riding the dog (again that might just be in my house) and your glass of Pinot Noir has yet to take the edge off. Or when your dog leaves you a little surprise to clean up at 5am in your closet – which you realize only after you’ve stepped in it. Or when your sick day results in one hundred and eighty-three messages that need to be responded to in some way shape or form, you know, immediately.

Or how about when we are fighting for our lives.

This week my colleague at work lost his wife to cancer. She had been battling it for a couple of years and had actually been issued a clean bill of health before it decided to come roaring back and metastasized in her lungs. A lawyer by profession, she had most recently worked in the non-profit community raising awareness for the very cancer that took her own life while raising their ten-year old daughter. I never knew her, but when I learned of her passing I took to the Internet and discovered that she was an amazing blogger – among a life filled with a million other accomplishments. Through her blog she left this incredible and astonishing record of her life and her relationship with what she calls “the Divine.” Which to her wasn’t an existential exercise – it was what confronted her every day.

I’d like to share with you the passage that just blew me away and inspired me to tackle the subject that I had shied away from because of my own hang ups and insecurities about God:

“We crave a sense of control – even if it’s false – to feel like we are on sure footing with a clear plan from point A to point B. But our plans, grounded in our human-ness, never include all the information. They can’t. Yes, we have free will but we are a creation, created based on a “higher,” divinely inspired plan. So the point of it all, perhaps, is to constantly (re)align our will with the Divine. We do so in the present moment, the “NOW.” – Barbra Watson-Riley

(link to her full blog post: http://pinkwellchick.com/2012/11/26/gather-your-strength/ )

So this week take a moment and create some space in your life for your higher power. Because it will provide you the resolve to face the task at hand – no matter how mundane or overwhelming it might be.

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