Lynne Herod-DeVerges, founder Center of Light Miracles and Miracles Directory
Flowing along your life path can be a continual series of gliding from the syndrome of a humdrum job to a Great Life, in both grand and minuscule ways. Each cycle represents a higher level of conscious awareness allowing you, spirit, to ascend into your life of true purpose and love. No doubt you’ve heard the expression, “Go with the flow,” but often, flow is not what you do, particularly when flowing seems to be slamming into a wall of lack, loss, and uncertainty. Nevertheless, it is inconceivable to experience life without some occasional valley moments; for it’s the lows that allow for a greater understanding of the blessings during the high periods. But it’s how you handle each and every aspect of life that really determines how you flow along your path.
THE JOB SYNDROME
So, you might be wondering; is this Job (pronounced Jobe) or job? Well, perhaps you aren’t familiar with Job, so let me explain. Job was a prominent figure who happened to make it into the Old Testament of the Bible. His story is one of faith, commitment, gratitude and Divine love. He was a very faithful and loving son of God who had it all: riches, a beautiful wife, property, livestock, wonderful children and several servants. One day Lucifer and God were talking. Lucifer claimed there wasn’t one human on Earth who truly loved God, who responded that there was one human above all else! Job was a very loving and committed son. But Lucifer argued that Job was loving and devoted because he had everything a human being desired. If God took it all away, Lucifer questioned whether Job would continue to praise God and if, instead, he would curse Him forever.
And so, their little wager began. If God took everything away from Job and he still loved and praised God, Job would be blessed again with all of his desires. However, if Job, for any reason, cursed God and stopped believing in him, the world would be doomed and Lucifer could have Job. So, with all bets off, one by one, Job lost his wife, his servants, his livestock, his property, his children, and ultimately his health. Nevertheless, through all of Job’s loss, he continued to praised and worship God. He never gave up faith on what God could and would do for him. Because of Job’s faithfulness (staying the course on his spiritual path), he received everything he had lost and more! His riches were multiplied beyond imagination! Although Job was left with absolutely nothing, he remained in the flow of love, gratitude, commitment and faith with God. He never wavered from his life’s path, and he was blessed with even greater abundance.
A GREATER LIFE!
Everyone thinks about, envisions, dreams, prays and begs for a life filled with all the desires they hold close to the heart. As demonstrated in the story of Job, to move from some of the darkest situations one can experience into the pure joy of huge blessings is a great life. And, after passing through such adversity, no longer experiencing the struggles and hardships from before, life is so fantastically wonderful! To move into a truly great life, you must be willing, without resistance, to go through the struggles and hardships or valley periods of life. It’s during those times that growth happens, wisdom is forged, lessons are learned, and challenges are overcome.
I often think about the butterfly. It is with great determination and compulsion that a caterpillar eats and eats and eats and eats until the time comes for it to create its own tomb. Imagine how stuffed it must be as it works toward a result that involves entombing itself. If that isn’t hardship, I don’t know what is. As soon as the caterpillar seals itself inside the cocoon, it can rest, ending that leg of its arduous journey. It appears that the hardship is passed and life has become easy! But the journey is not over as all of a sudden – BAM! The creature wakes up only to find that it must push and pound until it punches through the hardened case it created before it slept. Ughhhh! A real challenge with more struggle ahead. But, the caterpillar that was once so small discovers that it not only grew considerably. It has undergone a life transformation, and with it freedom and awareness born from the fight to the breakthrough. And a greater life, from the lowest levels where it crawled amidst the earth to the highest heights where it flies free above all other insects, is realized.
BEING IN THE FLOW IS KEY
The stories of Job and the caterpillar becoming a butterfly provide outstanding examples of how a greater life is often gained only when passing through to the other side, or the inevitable end of a cycle. Dwelling in the flow of life as it comes is the key to living in the glory of your desires. What both of these stories have in common is that adversity was present along the purposeful life paths of their heroes. However, the ability to move through stages of ever-pressing challenges is what brought about a greater life, as each story demonstrated.
Here’s a real life story of someone who went through “the Job Syndrome” only to find herself, even now, continuing to enjoy a greater life. We’ll call her Cindy (although it’s not her real name). She’s a beautiful woman who decided she could no longer stay with her husband, so she asked for a divorce, which is not uncommon. However, he earned the income while she had never worked before. He paid the bills while she had never balanced a checkbook and didn’t know about finances. And he paid the mortgage while she managed to pay only half of the down payment on the house.
Cindy loved her house. It was what she had picked out for them to live in. She was not prepared to sell it. Nor did she want him to buy her out because he really didn’t want the house. He just didn’t want her to have it. He told her, however, that she could keep the house if she dropped divorce proceedings, she stay married to him, and they lived in the house together. Cindy couldn’t agree to that. Based on certain personality and character traits he began to exhibit, she felt extremely uncomfortable around him. And so, off to divorce court they went followed by a bitter battle over assets and their baby son. After almost two years, Cindy gained the house and primary custody of their child. But while she fought the battle to keep what she desired, she began working for a relative who had a mortgage company. She learned about mortgages, finance and many other things to become a strong and wise businesswoman.
Soon after the divorce, she was able to refinance the house and buy out her ex-husband. She paid off all of her credit cards by transferring balances on existing cards to new zero-percent interest rate cards for the first six to twelve months. Everything she earned went toward paying off those cards. And she paid her house note with the settlement from her divorce. But, as alarming as it seems, once the credit cards were paid, she decided she never wanted to work again. So, she quit.
Cindy, instead, decided to turn her house into a money making opportunity. Refinancing the house again at a much lower rate, she took out some of its equity to convert two of the four bedrooms into rental units. She built a loft in back of the house, converted the garages, and created a beautiful tree house. With these rooms and luxurious spaces rented out, each with their own separate entrances, she ran her own bed-and-breakfast. Her home was right along the beautiful coast where access to the beach was less than half a mile away. She also had a selection of bicycles for residents to ride to the beach with picnic baskets to create an enjoyable experience. Cindy’s little business endeavor earned her a five-figure monthly income. And she had two housekeepers, a personal assistant, a business team and a cook that prepared meals from time to time. Cindy has moved on from this B&B, but she is still able to leave home and travel the world for several months at a time, something she had always wanted to do. Her son went off to college to begin his own new life adventures. Oh, and she’s still a single woman who prefers it that way.
Cindy’s challenges with her ex-husband and feelings of ineptness at managing the house and caring for herself and her child proved to be blessings that carried her into a greater life. She did not resist what she had to do. She moved forward bravely with transforming her lifestyle, even though it was scary. Cindy knew, as an expressive artist and painter at heart, that her purpose was to raise her son and express the love and beauty she carries within her to the world. Nothing would keep her from that goal, even when she didn’t know how things would work out. But, what she did know is that by investing in her self-development and going for what she desired, no matter what, she was able to find her true self and her true purpose, allowing her to live the fantastic life of her dreams. She’s lived this way for many years now and for what will likely be many more to come.
TIPS TO FLOW ALONG YOUR PATH
The reason I share these stories is to illustrate the fact that, no matter how much life becomes a struggle or how challenging they seem, the hardships you face are part of a flow leading to a much greater life. You can assist in your own process by moving out of resistance. Thoughts of “it’s too hard” or “it would hurt too much” lead to feelings of “I don’t want to,” which, in turn, lead to total inaction, all of which makes the struggle that much harder. Relax and let go. Let the path take you where it will because you may not always be able to see clearly what’s around the bend. You may not know what the emotional or psychological blocks are that, in actuality, prevent you from realizing your greater life.
Furthermore, do all that you can to become consciously aware. It doesn’t guarantee that you will know everything that will take place in your life. What you will know is that, although life isn’t a cake walk sometimes, you’re ready to handle it. The way you take care of difficulties is by staying neutral, not resisting, admitting when you’re wrong, and deciding you don’t have to be right, especially when defending something to the death of your highest good. Be consciously aware of who you are. Seek to better yourself in handling life’s challenges with more ease, peace and grace. Learn to be so comfortable with yourself that you can meet anything life brings with certain resolve, knowing that a greater life is assured.
And, stay secure in your certainty about your specific life’s path. Your journey is different from anyone else’s. All another can do is show or suggest how they have traveled along their path. Ultimately, it’s up to you how you chose to flow. The main thing is that you keep flowing in the present, moment by moment by moment by moment – until what remains is you floating along in freedom on the carefree cloud of a glorious life!
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Who do you turn to when you get stuck in a rut? Don’t know what your purpose is? Want to know the future state of the world or your life? Go to ASK-LYNNE and find out the answers!