Isn’t it strange how light can fit anywhere?

It was a sunny day. A single ray of light burst through the space between the weathered wood that dutifully made up the walls of the shed. I stood inside the shed not sure why I was there, but certain I was to remain there. The squeak of a well worn swing rythymically sounding off in the distance, I inched closer and peered through the opening between the wood. My older sister leaning up against the swing set talking with the other neighborhood kids while my older brother feverishly pumped his legs on the swing. I wasn’t alone in the shed, this memory has always had a presence. A boy without a face, naked together we were being instructed to do sexual things with one another. The orchestrator another faceless person. This is the dawn of conscious thought for me. I was two years old. From that moment on I carried with me guilt that I must have somehow instigated it, wanted that to happen. It never occurred to me to tell anyone. For many years this memory seemed more dreamlike than real. Deep within me shame gained a strong foot hold. The first time I told anyone was in a Grief and Loss workshop a few years ago.

I spent years struggling with feeling worthy, pure and loveable. Afraid if people knew my deepest darkest secret they would for sure abandon me and rightly so. I was a monster.

Skip to my early 20’s I gravitated towards anyone who might love me. I met a young man that I thought would love me forever. Things progressed rather quickly, naturally. We were to be married in his home country of Argentina. We barely spoke each other’s language. He invited me to come and spend some time in California where he was working. The plan was once work was completed there we would go to Argentina to be married. Once in California that man I knew for a few months was completely different. I was isolated, he did not speak much to me and any conversations around me were in another language. This was before everyone owned a cell phone. There were no phones to use. He began to rape me repeatedly over the course of a week. I managed to facilitate an escape. Once home I did not report it. I thought that nobody would believe me since he was my boyfriend and I had consented before. I also thought that I should have said “no” more forcibly, maybe he didn’t understand me. I should have fought him harder. I should have known better than to go with someone I didn’t really know. I could have done more. It was my fault. Later a friend of mine ran into my ex boyfriend, he and his friends gang raped her. She did report it but evidence was destroyed because she took a shower. Nothing was ever done. I felt even more guilt because I should have said something…once again there was something destructive about being me.

Fast forward to 27 years old, things were starting to lift a bit. I was married. My husband and I came through a near divorce and were doing better than ever. I had a beautiful son. I had a job in a treatment center for substance abuse which I recieved healing by proxy. One saturday my older brother and my family and a friend decided to go on a day hike. It was a hot day in mid July. The hike did not go as planned, the trail was in horrible condition. What should have only taken only a few hours, we had spent the entire day hiking never reaching the destination. While arguing with the husband about whether or not we should press on my brother said he wanted to go back to the truck and would meet us there. 15 minutes later the rest of us decided to call it quits as well. My brother never made it to the truck and was found dead in the woods three days later. I felt so guilty that I let him go alone, I should have went with him. He might not have died if I was there. I abandoned my brother and he died alone.

If you would have asked me if I believed in God I would have told you, “it’s complicated.” I don’t think I ever really knew spirituality to begin with. I pictured God to be a being on a cloud, vigilant to and keeping record of every sin, punishing the wicked, dealing out doses of suffering to make people stronger or to test their faith through circumstance. When I lost my brother I was done with this God. Believing that it meant that I was done with faith and spiritual belief of any kind.

This is the point that my spirit dipped so low. Thoughts of suicide. Feeling like my existence burdened others. Thinking that my husband and child would be better off without me. I was the problem and the solution was to end myself.

Sometimes the smallest glimmer of light is the most glorious. For me The book The Shack was a small flicker of light, telling me that the darkness was temporary.

The thought occured to me that even though I didn’t feel the presence of a higher power that didn’t mean that I was forsaken, the thought that God was within enduring everything I endured was powerful. An insight, a healing ray of light finding its way into the dark place. That was the very beginning of my spiritual reclamation.

Have you ever watched a sunrise and noticed that light does not come all at once? The splendor of light is born one ray at a time. Each ray outstretching the other traveling quickly to pull up the sun. This stunning spectacle of dawn that occurs every day is a reminder that change and healing come in a little at a time.

Healing is much like a sunrise. It’s the sunrise of consciousness. Little ray’s of awareness, one by one, insight by insight, a soul rises to illumination. Inspiration dawning within, shining upon the spirit giving unto it the gift of growth, healing and flight. Imagine that within you is the world. Each day the sun rises and gives light, your job is to maximize the benefit of the day and heal, restore and grow internal landscapes. Using your spirit, your mind and body to take action on the inspiration gifted to you each day.

Through individual healing we each become a ray of light. Everyone an individual light beam of inspiration collectively giving light to our external world. Enlightenment is when we join the sunrise of oneness.