It’s not a great name, but it’s what I am calling it and this is where I am at. When I was born into this world I came into a world full of sin and I see it as a large shore, (clue it in being a large shore – aren’t we meant to set off somewhere?) . My parents, not choosing any different, thought it was normal to dump me on this shore where just in front of me was the sea of emotions. It’s pretty cloudy on this sin shore, not much light or life and any life that is there is tainted by the grey skies. Even the sand looks grey. I am a child and I have a natural curiosity about the water and the little light I can see in the distant horizon. I try to paddle in the water and sometimes I am successful, but my parents panic and they pull me back. They are afraid of the water and I remind them they once had the same curiosity and they don’t want to be reminded of that.

Sometimes they even punish me for going near the water: they hit me or shout at me or shout at each other about who is to blame for my curiosity and they tell me they do this because they love me. It’s hard to tell which one is more afraid and in fact what I discover is that all the adults around me agree with them: it’s not safe in the water and we must do everything we can to avoid going in there. Overtime, because of everybody’s reaction, I learn it is safer to not go near the water, even though sometimes I still want to. I then start to adopt some of the same techniques they use to avoid acknowledging the existence of the the vast expanse of water: not talking about the water, distracting myself from the water in many ways and as I grow into a young adult I am pretty much convinced by the world’s view that to go in the water is not loving and not safe.

Because we never go in the water we get covered in dirt and mud, and the layers get thicker. My parents can hardly move because they are so covered in mud.

I get very confused about love and the sea of emotions and I learn that “love hurts” so I decide to just live my life and enjoy little comforts and pleasures as much as I can. As an adult I go out into the world with these beliefs and even when I feel pain inside I do everything I can to not feel it and in fact I think there is something very wrong with me. I stand on the shore and if I forget I sometimes let my toes in, but it feels so wrong to do it, I step back. I distract myself with food, TV, sex, drinking, working, and doing. I soon start to become like all adults, covered in mud.

I’m not happy though and I start looking for answers, someone to talk to,  but find none that really help. I try to be what others want me to be, agree with them. I give them things and they give me things and it feels good for a while. I don’t feel so confused and worthless and it feels a bit like love. But things don’t go to plan and people leave my life or tell me it’s because I am not this or that.

Every now and then without me knowing the water comes up around my feet. On one level, I like the feeling and it helps me understand a few things, but then the fear creeps in and my mother and others attack me when I do it. They scream at me, “Don’t go near the water!” I don’t want to get hurt so I back off and step out of the water.

On the surface I am living, but inside I am dying. The mud gets so heavy my body starts to hurt sometimes and I feel exhausted from the effort of pretending and putting on a facade. I still look for answers sometimes, but other times I just feel hopeless. I convince the world so well that I am what they want, I lose myself and start to believe my own creation. After all this facade and not going in the water has kept me ‘safe’ and people like me and I want them too.

I have a child and I do the same with him. I convince him the water isn’t safe. In fact, I am so afraid of the water now that I do anything to not go near it, including murdering another child I was too afraid to have and harming others. I want to run away from my fear and I demand others help me do that. I want to run away from my loneliness, despair and unworthiness and I demand and get angry at the world if it doesn’t help me avoid the sea.

But over time I notice my world is getting darker, my body develops illness and disease. Every day something hurts and the mud restricts my movement. I feel lost and I don’t know how to receive or give love. My heart is turning to stone and I want to die. Then I come across people who seem happier and know things that exist that we can’t see. I am drawn in by the secret world they seem to know about, full of magical beings. I learn about things like meditation, past lives, chakra clearing. They have found all these quick fixes which I experiment with and for a while I feel better: I feel special.

A few years pass and during that time I have a relationship with a man who also likes the magic and I think it’s wonderful. I feel worthy, sexy and loved and I learn that sex can be ‘sacred.’ But within a year it comes crashing around my ears, he finds someone else and I find myself thrown into the shallows of the waters. I can not make sense of anything, I feel I may drown. I feel unworthy, unsexy and unloved and I don’t want that. I look for answers in the magic, but nothing works and I start to see that in fact it’s not really working for anyone and we are just all pretending.

I am angry and sad, standing on the shore, touching the edge of the ocean and I call for help, for truth. In the distance, I suddenly see the light again and it starts moving towards me. It lights up the sea where I stand and I can see that the water isn’t grey, it’s turquoise and clear and on the horizon there is a land that is lit up, full of colour and bright. The light tells that is where happiness and joy lives and that it’s creator, who is the Creator of all things, has been waiting for me to seek and ask. She is a being so full of love and we are her children, but like a good parent, she wants us to want the Land of Happiness. I want to be there and I learn from the light that to be there I have to swim in the sea of emotions. I have to go a journey to let go of all my false beliefs about Love and seek Truth and a desire to know my Creator, who is Divine and good.

Over the next few years, I paddle in the water a little. I call the light and I learn more about the sea of emotions, about Truth, Love and the Creator. I don’t find it easy as I am still very afraid of the sea and I am not sure who to trust. Sometimes  people around me start to attack me, if I try to swim. I am also stubborn and cross and want to do it my way! Why do I have to swim? Why can’t the Creator just send a nice little boat for me and pick me up?

Then I come to now: I am standing on the shore and the light has been teaching me again and I finally understand. I have to swim, I have to feel. In fact that is how I was made to be. The light has in fact done the same journey and I see that the light was once a man and woman like me. I cry with wonder and joy that they were like me and could now be such a beautiful light.

I am confronted with the difference and yet a longing to know what kind of light I might be. I have learnt I am only half of my light, but if I swim I will help the other half of me come to the shore and swim too and that we can live in the Land of Happiness and Joy together. But first I must face the truth of what I have become and the only way to lose the false version of me is to swim in the emotions and let all my sadness and fear go. I will have to feel my anger at the Creator too and for a while the sea will feel very choppy and dangerous, because it is so opposite to the grey shore. But, I must wash the mud off and because it is so thick it will take time.

I will need courage and a strong desire to change and I will need to be comfortable with feeling uncomfortable. I have a lot to feel sorry for, the false me and all the bad things she did and said and thought. All the pain I have had can only dissolve in the sea and it will hurt to come out, but once I feel each pain it won’t come back if I keep swimming and if I have faith, just as God does, that I can do this. He created the sea to be very special and possible for every one of us to swim in.

So here I am making the decision to swim, to keep my eyes on the horizon and let the sea wash off my mud. My toes are in, the water feels unfamiliar and I am afraid, but I am curious about so many things: what light I am, what being mud-free feels like, what the island of happiness and joy is like, how I can repair the damage, especially to my son and the other young souls I harmed.

My family are going to scream at me from the shore, I do not know where I am swimming to, but where I have been has become too painful and too restrictive. The light has given me an idea of the Love just by being the light and tells me the light of God is even greater. I am curious about the Light.

So if you are standing on the shore, feeling weighed down by mud, listening to all the voices that want you to stay there I hope I have made you curious about the sea, the Land of Happiness, the Light you can become and the idea of meeting your Creator: meeting Love face to face and Heart to heart.

Thank you God for Creativity,

Maxine

**Inspired by attending Assistance Group 4.2: Understanding Sin and Its Causes, which will be online in the next couple of months. It’s pure magic and being here has been incredible. Thank you to Mary and Jesus for an education like no other, your endless love and compassion: you walk your walk and demonstrate God on earth. I hope to repay you by joining you in the ocean instead of just talking about it!

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