I started house shopping in September 2010 when I realized I had enough money for a down payment and thought I better jump at the opportunity to purchase a house in Los Angeles before the market picked up again and the opportunity slipped through my hands. By March 2011 I had looked at dozens of houses, written several offers, and still had nothing to show for it. In the meantime I had taken three Reiki classes in less than four months time with my second Reiki Master, Marla Mervis, (Check her out www.marlamervisreiki.com. She’s incredible!) and all the energy spun me into a deep depression.
I was easily irritated, unhappy at work, and felt like I was spread to thin with all the obligations and responsibilities I had.
Upon recognizing this, I pulled back from socializing with friends and knew that I had to analyze my situation and do some soul searching, and then a friend of mine invited me to attend a service at Agape International Spiritual Center.
I had never been to Agape and I was excited to go because I had heard so many great things from others about it.
What I didn’t expect was how I felt during the service. I thought I was going to love it but I ended up feeling a little closed off to the experience which surprised my friend and my self. I had noticed the same reaction when I went to a Buddhist Temple for a service three years prior when I was attending weekly Buddhist meditation classes. After talking with my friend about it when we got home, I figured out the pattern.
I got uncomfortable in group worship settings that felt “church-y” and that, in essence, I had an issue with the use of the word God.
To make it more impactful on my mind I thought out loud “I have an issue with God. I need to get right with God.” And that started me on an inward journey for the next week to address this discomfort with the word and the concept of God.
Being raised Catholic, I learned to understand God through the lens of the Catholic religion, and when I got old enough to start questioning my beliefs in the church I became jaded and sided heavily with science-based ideas rather than ideas that relied on blind faith in religion. Eventually through studying different spiritual ideas and learning about Reiki and quantum theories, I started opening up to the mysteries of the universe, but would never use the word God to describe any of it.
I carefully used “The Universe” instead of “God” to describe the unknown because that appealed my analytical science mind and allowed me to be more open to mysterious events and possibilities.
During the week following my first visit to Agape, I spent a lot of time in contemplation regarding God and my relationship with it, and exactly one week later I decided to write my own definition of what that word meant to me.
On April 13th, 2011 I wrote the following entry in my journal:
“What is God? God is the thread that connects all living and non-living things, taking up all space yet occupying none of it, the higher conscious that holds all thoughts that ever were and all thoughts yet to be realized. It has no judgements right and wrong. Since it is in everything, omnipresence now makes sense to me. Holding all thoughts makes omniscience totally comprehensible to me. Tapping into that energy gets us out of ourselves, letting go of the conscious limitations in which we live and allows for us to become greater than we currently are, even if it is only for a brief moment.”
Writing down my own definition of God changed a lot for me and helped bring the use of that word back into my life.
I now knew what the word “God” meant to me, and I was able to let go of the old notion I had of it and start to develop a new relationship with it. The biggest step in creating my relationship with God came less than three weeks later when I asked for help in making a decision whether or not to purchase a house I saw with my real estate agent.
I had quickly walked through the house in question towards the end of the week and it left a big impression on me. I couldn’t stop thinking about it over the weekend, and fantasizing about what it would be like to live there. Finally after eight months of searching I found a house I really liked and it was right in my price range. The only trouble was that the bedrooms seemed small, and I wasn’t sure if my recently purchased furniture would fit. Like I said, I walked through quickly and didn’t spend enough time checking out details. But I couldn’t get it out of my head. I needed to go back to look, and so I called up my real estate agent and set up an appointment to visit the house again.
Now because my mind was wrapped up in the fantasy and suite net about this house, I was in no mental state to make a sound decision about it. Plus, I tend to overthink things anyways, and I was terrified about making a financial blunder in purchasing this house. The night before the appointment I sat in meditation and decided to connect with God.
I spoke out to God asking for a sign to either purchase or pass on the house, and asking for a sign was not something I had ever done before.
Also knowing that I like to doubt and explain away anything that could be misconstrued as a sign, I asked that the sign be something so out of the ordinary that I couldn’t explain it away. I spent a good time in this conversation with God, and went to bed nervously awaiting the appointment.
When I arrived at the house I had a few extra minutes by myself before my agent got there, and from the gate on the street the house looked as magnificent as I had remembered. I had the measurements of my furniture in hand along with a tape measure so that I could have some concrete evidence on which to weigh my decision, but was also awaiting that sign to tell me which way to go. Purchase or Pass? Which would it be?
My agent arrived and we started to chat as we approached the gate to get the keys and enter the property. The keys were in an electronically sealed lock box, and she had to use an attachment to her phone to open it. I had seen her do this several times at different houses we looked at over the last several months, but this time it wasn’t working. She assured me that it worked at another house earlier that day and was confused at why it wasn’t working. She even tried it using my phone to avail. She continued trying to open it with one phone while she called tech support with the other. I took a few steps down the sidewalk away from her as she talked with the technicians for almost 20 minutes, and eventually I started to realize that this was my sign.
For a brief moment I started to question whether or not this was actually the sign and immediately a fly started buzzing incessantly in my face as if it was asking me, “Did you get it? Did you get the sign?”
Once I acknowledged that the sign had been delivered I got goosebumps and chills shot down from head to toe. I knew that the house was not the one for me. A sense of peace spread through my body and mind, and I knew that even if I didn’t get to check my measurements inside the house, I already had my answer.
Eventually we got inside, and like I already knew, the measurements did not work out. The measurements confirmed the message I received outside, and as I drove away from that house tears streamed down my face.
I was moved to tears by the fact that my prayer was answered and that I now had a new relationship with the mysteries of the universe and my personal concept of God.