“Sometimes all I need is the air that I breathe
And to love you
All I need is the air that I breathe
Yes to love you
All I need is the air that I breathe” – The Hollies
Sunsets always radiate so much love, warmth, and renewal of the heart.
Colossians 3:14
“And the most important piece of clothing you must wear is love. Love is what binds us all together in perfect harmony.”
The more we pray and meditate, the more our world illuminates around us. Clarity forges paths we were not able to see before. Opportunities brighten that maybe were just in the darkness masked by our pride, self-doubt, or fear. But this light of clarity comes from the fact that prayer and meditation opens up our hearts. Our hearts become humble, understanding, loving, and willing to hear the messages meant for us to collect.
As prayer and meditation open the heart, it gives us the ability to know and love ourselves more deeply. We quickly learn, that there are obstacles in life we need higher help with, therefore, we become aware of the things we cannot handle or are not capable of as humans. For example, we’ve all had those moments when we just can’t take some problem in life, and so we humbly finally succumb to praying or meditating about these particular things. We see, in that moment, of choosing to pray in the first place, that we need something more than ourselves to solve a problem. This proves that we were not capable of solving this problem on our own without the higher help of being in a state of a softer heart, by which the softer heart is more able to listen to the wisdom needed to work your way through this particular problem in life. The best part is, through prayer and meditation, we always receive an answer! These answers come in the form of feelings of peace, grace, lightness, clarifying messages and sometimes actual visions of understanding because we are now in a better state of being able to see what we could not see before as a solution.
This “better state of being” is a state of LOVE.
Why not just take in all the love and wisdom you possibly can 🙂 The outcome is better than what you think.
Sometimes, when we feel that we are not receiving answers of clarity or rescue through prayer and meditation, it is because the layers of doubt, pride, pain, and skepticism are still standing in the way and they may be layered on pretty thick from all the years of having a closed up heart. Heavier strategies of prayer and meditation are needed to remove this wall of fear and doubt preventing you from appreciating the wisdom you are receiving. Heavier strategies include:
Praying and Meditating (P&M) in nature
P&M in Church when no one is around
P&M with a candle or fresh flowers in solitude
P&M with pictures or statues of Saints surrounding you, or with the Crucifix
P&M with pictures of loved ones who have passed on or who are alive
P&M with the Bible or spiritual assisting book of choice
P&M with the Saints (reading about their lives or reading their journal translations and prayers)
Service or volunteering in your community or for those in need
Working with the less fortunate
For those of us who feel like we should not or do not have the time to pray and turn to meditation, maybe this reference from The Jesuit Guide to {Almost} Everything by Father James Martin, SJ will alter your perspective a little. Father James Martin spells out,
“Resistance is often an invitation to pray or think more deeply about those feelings. Why do I feel resistance? Are you being called to be free of whatever holds you back from a deeper love of God?”
Choosing to pray is a lot like choosing to walk down a beautiful path full of flowers, comfort, and miraculous blessings. Go for it 🙂
Once we break through the things that hold us back from praying and meditating, we are able to receive the relief of wisdom any time we need it in life. Each time we pray or meditate it’s different. Sometimes we receive short, quick messages. Sometimes we need to take a lot of time to work through our problems. Sometimes we are just in a state of joy, constantly being given the chance to see and appreciate the blessings in our lives.
Either way, all of these versions of praying and meditating are like little glimpses of heaven, where this kind of clarity and affirmation received makes us more loving in every aspect of our lives. Through this love, prayer and meditation gives us the grace to be more humble, more understanding and it gives us the strength and humility to improve in the areas we truly want to improve. It makes us better friends, co-workers, siblings, children, and so on. It makes us lighter beings and overall more fun to be around.
In the book I have never been able to stop reading over and over again, Meditations with Teresa of Avila: A Journey into the Sacred, Megan Don goes deep into the relationship Saint Teresa had with God and discusses the result of her constant prayer and petition. An uplifting quote from Megan Don’s translations, “We cannot fight reason with reason, she said; we can only fall into the realm of compassion — that deep place of understanding and love — for ourselves and for others.”
Whether you like it or not, prayer and meditation will create the ability to love yourself more, love others more, love and appreciate the blessings in your life, love the nature in your environment or motivate you to seek it, and most of all, love and forgive your enemies or those you have strained relationships with.
Choose to open up and bloom. Little Truths by Bloomified
