Monday, July 2, 2012

My Story

     For years God has just been answering all my prayers with a directive to rest. So, imagine my surprise the other day when I knelt down to present my usual praises and requests to God and heard the still small whisper in my head saying  "Let go of your image'. WHAT?! I think I am an expertly subtle spin doctor of my own life. Allowing people to see just enough dirt to weave an image of humility and just enough light to show I have been working on my soul. Ha! I don't think letting go of my image means wearing frumpy clothes and no make up. But I don't really know what it means. I do know two things though. First it makes me very uncomfortable to share my personal faith story and I am supposed to do that now. Sigh...

  My Mother is Jewish woman with what some might call a "new age" bent I don't think she would call it that, my Father a spiritual but not religious man of Episcolpalian background, a deep thinker. My parents gifted me greatly by allowing for spiritual exploration without pushing (too much) their own agendas. This led to many adventures in the spirit realm. Quiji boards, past life regressions, chanting....I left no stone unturned looking for God. It was in a 12 step program (Overeaters anonymous) in 1991/92 I decided there was a God and He was a river. Just a wash of energy mabye with intelligence, I was too busy hurting and eating to think much beyond that. Fast forward to 1995 and I had just begun a new massage career when in enters Sarah.
    
Sarah was an Olympic hopeful at the time in the marathon and she came to me for massage after praying for a "Christian" therapist and my name popped up. I was completely emeshed in my God search and had just spent an evening with a Temple of the Goddess Isis group. Not a classical "Christian" activity. So Sarah came and Sarah prayed and I rubbed her and ignored her prayers. And this happened over and over until one day she came in quite sad and shared with me that she would have to quit running as the flesh on her heels had worn down. I could feel her bone through the skin...no padding. She asked me to hold her heels while she prayed and even as I did I was surely rolling my eyes. The eye rolls stopped abruptly when the next week she presented to me two fat fleshy heels.

     The next week she came in with healed heels and out of my mouth (what?!) I asked her to this revival happening in Pensacola, Fl. I was confused and angry at what was coming out of my mouth but none the less a few nights later Sarah found herself going on Mr. Toads Wild Ride as a passenger in my car. That night there were 2000 people at the revival but when the Pastor called out "There is a young woman here tonight whose Mother practices witchcraft and she needs to come to know God I just stood without thinking and began to walk towards the alter. (Some of the searches my Mother had been on are considered "witchcraft" by fundamentalists). Anyways, as I was walking up I just remember being furious because "Jews don't accept Christ". There were 8 people at the alter praying for others and I chose to walk up to a bearded man and stand before him glaring. The last thing I remember is him saying "I have to tell you I am a Messianic Rabbi" and then he prayed and I fell like a baby into Jesus' arms. Everything changed. It has been my unshakeable belief since that moment that Jesus is my Lord, Guru, Shepard and Path to God. So I spent the next 12 years being nurtured and raised up by a very loving but conservative and fundamental Christian community. This is the part where is gets hard. These people gave me roots in Christ and taught me discpline to stay near Him and it hurts my heart to think of hurting them. But now that I have moved back to Austin and am teaching yoga so many of their external rules have fallen away. I no longer believe gay people are going to hell and I no longer believe Jesus is the ONLY way to heaven. Although He clearly is MY way. I know this article (if any of them find it) will leave them praying for me and I love them for it. But my "walk" has boiled down to this for now. Jesus is my Guru....I need to follow Him and everything else is none of my business. He loved, I should love. He kept His eyes on God and so should I. So, here I am a Messianic Jew yoga teacher mutt of a person, belonging to no camp. Many Jews hate me calling Jesus messiah including my extended family. Many Christians think I don't go far enough. Many yogis find my Christianity offensive There is no neat box for me.  So here I am doing my best to spin a story to protect myself and hearing God telling me to quit telling stories. So this I know, God is good, God is love but that is all I know. So this post is my awkward attempt to obey God and let go of my image. This is who I am today but I trust that tomorrow God will have refined me a bit.

The only constant in life is change so being who I am in the moment is the best I got.

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