stepping out of "the Law" and into "the Grace"

[Gaining Strength]

I had lunch with a cousin today.  He called and invited me.  It was fortuitous.  He told me about some of his recent struggles with his career.  His entire work life has been a struggle but he is a very competent person.  He told me that what finally changed him was recognition that he has lived life under the law and he began to be free this past fall when he realized this.

He asked about my life and my son and I told him about where I was in life, explaining that I was getting stronger and stronger and more capable of handling life's difficulties.  He pointed out that "getting stronger in order to do" is living under the law.  Living in Grace is accepting God's love because I am His creation not because I have done the right things. 

I have been striving to get things right, to get right so I can do things. 

I didn't know why he called me for lunch.  But it was one of those incredible gifts that just come out of the blue.  I am incredibly thankful.  It came on the day i really needed it.

I'm taking the pressure off and opening my heart to God's love - the universal love that abound around us.

Anyone have stories or examples of moving out of law into grace?

[debkor]

GS,

Well I don't know if this is the same but.  You know my son had MRSA and Cat Scratch Fever awhile back.  I kind of calmed down with it coming back but happened to catch the Dr Phil Show  (about MRSA) one day and it triggered me into Fear.  I pretty much thought I shut it down and out but I found myself checking my son more often.  Looking up things on the net and fears coming back, and me in denial that I was scared. 

Then about a week later, I got a card from his Dr for a recheck in June. 

I don't know GS but this card came at a perfect time and I calmed down.  I think he's going to be alright and still not have it.

Out of the blue came that card and that is something I really needed.  I didn't have to call for a check  it came to me at the time My fears were so heightened.

Was it grace?

Love
Deb

[Gabben]

Hi GS:

Here is a story.

A couple of years ago I was facing some of my medical expense debts that I had neglected to stay on top of. They totaled about 20K. I felt overwhelmed but I followed the advice of the AA big book, which is all about grace and miracles, where it instructs us to never run from our creditors but to always face them, no matter what, even if we do not have the full amount to pay them.

So I called the doctors and hospitals where I owed bills and wrote small checks and asked them to mail me the monthly statements.

Basically, all of my debts were accounted for and nothing was delinquent but I still felt overwhelmed knowing that I was going to have to sacrifice a chunk of my monthly pay check to paying off these bills, for at least a couple of years.

Right about this same time I started connecting with my biological father who abandoned me when I was 3. We had been in contact over the years, he lived a couple of states away, but we were not close. He was never a wealthy man, he actually struggled to make ends meet himself so I was surprised when he suddenly offered to send me an extra $500 monthly, no questions asked, to help me cover the bills. For the next year, like clockwork, he deposited the money into my bank account on the 15th.

It was sort of his way of making amends for not being there even though he knew there was no way that he could make it up that he left me but his attempt at sacrifice deeply touched me and made a huge difference in more ways then one.

That was grace...God doing for me what I could not do for myself. But it took for me to be open to grace such as being willing to sacrifice and pay and face all of my debts in order to enable God to work in my life.

Just like my quote below here...

[Ami]

Dear GS
 Law and Grace are two huge concepts.
 I am getting that I have grace (acceptance just as I am) b/c I am God's child, nothing more or less.
 The Law is trying to earn acceptance. Grace is HAVING it already ,simply b/c we are His kids. Nothing of value or worth of our own can GET us there.
  It is the opposite of perfectionism, which is funny b/c we, LV's, struggle with perfectionism ,so badly.
        Love   Ami


PS I am so glad you had a nice lunch with your cousin.

[Hopalong]

((((((((((cousin))))))))))))
((((((((((doctor's card)))))))))))))
(((((((((((biodad)))))))))))))))

 

wonderful stories

Hops

[Gaining Strength]

Struggling again.  Going through yet another round of experiencing the emotions that I repressed in the past. 

Last night I thought about "voicelessness" and remembered a recurring dream in which I am with my FOO and a disaster is impending.  I am warning them but they won't listen.  I am so voiceless that they would rather die than listen to me.  Voiceless.

Shame comes pouring in when:
I feel ignored
Someone else is favoured
I make a mistake
I clean up a mistake
Someone rejects me or excludes me
Someone is or has what I want or want to be
Retreat to my house to hide from pain/shame
Waking up

Waking up was the beginning of the shaming in my house growing up.  It was the beginning of the criticism and condemnation that only ended when I was alone.

A friend told me about a report that was made by a psychiatrist which said that the brain cannot process fear and love at the same time.  All I ever knew was fear.  But I never recognized it as that.  I saw my experience as simply a person (me) who was flawed, very flawed and could not measure up.  That was processed into my being from the youngest age. 

Now I know.  I know that I was not flawed but human.  I know that rather than help, support, encourage me my parents rejected and shamed me and called it love.  I know that from a young age I internalized their voices and began the persecution myself.  Frozen into that shame, believing it (the shaming) would beat me into shape.  It never did.  It ground me down into hopelessness and desperation. 

Finally I know that I am not dependent on someone else to rescue me.  Finally I know that I have everything I need to step out of the pain and self-destruction.  Finally I know steps to take to change my thoughts and generate hope.  finally I know that I can move out of this dispair.

The loneliness that imprisons me is mitigated when I turn to open my heart to the universal love that for me is available from God.  If I give in to it it will overrun the dispair, the self-condemnation, the fear, anxiety and shame.  It will lift the darkness that imprisons me, immobilizes me.

Striving, tired but hopeful
Gaining Strength

[towrite]

GS - my mother told me a few years ago that she learned from Dr. Spock when I was small that it was a parent's duty to keep their children from getting "a swelled head". So that was her excuse for criticizing, blaming, shaming, and belittling me.

I have "fired" God. A good, loving Father would never allow his children to suffer needlessly --- and I am so tired of all the "Haves" raving about how good he is to them and that I should praise him. For what? He's not done anything for me, not now and not in the past.

Sorry for my anger. I hope you know it's not directed at you. That's just the way I have felt for the past 8 years.

[Gaining Strength]

Sorry for my anger. I hope you know it's not directed at you. That's just the way I have felt for the past 8 years.
Pour out your rage here ToWrite.  I think this is a very good place to pour out your rage.  I know it is not at me but I also am mindful that while I depend on God that writing about God and religious thoughts can be offensive to some here.  I weigh it carefully each and every time I post.  That is precisely why I referred to "universal love" - for those who reject God talk.

GS - my mother told me a few years ago that she learned from Dr. Spock when I was small that it was a parent's duty to keep their children from getting "a swelled head". So that was her excuse for criticizing, blaming, shaming, and belittling me.
So appalling that no words can comment.

I have "fired" God. A good, loving Father would never allow his children to suffer needlessly --- and I am so tired of all the "Haves" raving about how good he is to them and that I should praise him. For what? He's not done anything for me, not now and not in the past.
I am saddened, truly and deeply saddened that people can be so callous and can use God's name in their callousness.  Of course you and anyone would reject the message from such people.

I care about you and hurt with you.

Your friend,
Gaining Strength

[Gabben]

The loneliness that imprisons me is mitigated when I turn to open my heart to the universal love that for me is available from God.  If I give in to it it will overrun the dispair, the self-condemnation, the fear, anxiety and shame.  It will lift the darkness that imprisons me, immobilizes me.

Striving, tired but hopeful
Gaining Strength

Oh boy GS -- all that you wrote really hit home with me. I awoke this morning at 5am feeling just about how you described. Recently I have been reading a book called the Fire of God's Delayed Answers by Bob Sorge.

Just this morning, I was reading the chapter on the ways in which God puts us in prison to prune and shape us. His work of purification is clearly being done in you and whatever God starts He completes. At least that has been my comforting thought.

Hugs,
Lise

[Ami]

Dear GS,
 I think that the key to healing  is your comment that you are "human". When I was healthier I "knew" this and it kept me sane. This little thought that I was 'human" and could trust myself ,that I was the same as other human beings, not 'bad" was the key to my sanity.
Once, I accepted my M's view of me, that I was "bad", I was sunk. Then, everything from the outside, was filtered through the 'I am bad" filter.
 Then, nothing could change that old idea and I was  frozen.
  I think that you are almost there,in your healing, GS.
 We are in different places, in certain things, at the moment, but we ,each are trying to reclaim the truth and our trust in ourselves ,so we can go on,with strength.
 Love to you,    Ami

((((((GS))))))

[Ami]

I just had a thought, GS. I think grace happens when we surrender.
I see how much *I* want to figure things out, make myself "right", in the way I "think "i should.
 God has touched me the MOST when I had no plans, thoughts or ways out of my dilemma. Then, miracles have happened. Just felt the  desire to share that with you.    Love   Ami

[Gaining Strength]

Thank you all for the support and kindness.  So love your stories of grace.

My whole life, when I had to "do" something - big or small - I get a knot in my stomach and want to drop into oblivion.  Now I understand - it is about the law, about judgment.  I am being judged - (I have become my own judge.)  I want this stuff to stop.  This is still that old shame stuff but this is "pre"-shame.  It occurs instantaneously before the shame. 

Sharing this helps me move through it.  It is gross, it is disgusting, it is foul like garbage or body essences - gross.  Tired of being, feeling gross. 

Need vision of myself as not gross, not rejected.

[Hopalong]

Hi Towrite,

I didn't exactly fire god, but I let go of the power of the word.
I'm agnostic now, but still involved in a religious community (UU) that makes room for doubts.

I understand how you feel.
In a way, though, being angry at a god suggests believing in one (who's let you down).

Not knowing has become a sacred experience for me, remaining open on a threshold.

love
Hops

[Ami]

Oh GS
 You are one of the most NON -gross people around.             Love   Ami