Walk With Me-Nine
By Carol Englehaupt
During the early years of Josh attending Easter Seals I found myself searching and struggling to refill my own energy. With all the sleep deprivation, and the fear of losing a child to illness, and various other personal problems that were going on, I often felt drained and helpless.
The one lesson my older son’s illness taught me was the knowledge that faith and prayer are not enough. The Bible teaches us that the only way to salvation is through belief that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. That may save you, but it does very little to help you.
Belief didn’t change anything in my life, and I found myself desperate, so I did the only thing I could think of. I went back to church. The first source of strength didn’t come to me through words, but through music. When the organ played, and the piano joined in, and voices were raised in song, I found myself in tears.
I hadn’t realized that I was starving for music. Music had been such a big part of my life. I was lucky enough to have the same music teacher from kindergarten through high school. I learned to read music in the first grade. I have literally read music as long as I’ve read words. My mother, despite having eight children and a limited income, made sure I received piano lessons.
I played a flute for seven years, and took two years of classical guitar. My family sings, and dances, and plays various instruments. I didn’t realize the power of sound. I joined choir and was able to sing again. Glory, glory indeed.
I eventually started a junior choir and took over directing the adult choir and I started to feel energy come back. It was such a relief to be immersed in beautiful sounds; to forget the stress I was living with. Josh attended with me and I think he felt the power of sound, too. Although, as I’ve mentioned in a previous blog, there were certain songs he strongly objected to.
The funny thing was that he could tell which song we were going to sing with the first note played. I never was able to slip in a song he didn’t like. And he could yell louder than the organ. It was easier to pick songs he liked.
Music wasn’t enough, but it was a start. To continue my healing, I began to read the Bible from beginning to end. I discovered something really interesting. The power of the Holy Spirit. I’m going to clarify something here that may have a lot of Christians screaming at me. I talk about Spirit in terms of the Bible because that is the path I follow, but I am convinced that God by any other name is still God.
He is the Source of all things. Spirit comes from God. Religion is simply man’s attempt to explain Spirit so I don’t care what faith you follow. The Source is the same regardless of what name you call Him or Her or It. The Source is what’s important, and it can be felt.
It can be tapped into. It has Power. Now I understood what prayer is supposed to be. And I understand the power of meditation. In my reading, I came across a statement made by Norman Vincent Peale. Prayer is man talking to God; meditation is God talking to man. I’m sure I have paraphrased, but the idea is in there.
The Source is power. Once I discovered how to identify and use that energy, I felt myself refilled. I don’t know any other way to explain it. Before I learned about Spirit prayer was more like me throwing sand into the wind; after I understood the power of Spirit I felt like I was casting bread upon the water.
Connections, expansion. I began to feel energy, touch energy, and be fed when I needed energy. The filling that happened would hit me with such power. I often found myself crying at unexpected times for unexpected reasons and I can see how the strong energy feed could drop a person to their knees.
I don’t know what will work for others. I can only write down what worked for me. I was saved. Not by prayer or faith. I was saved by works. It takes effort to heal. It isn’t given to you, you have to seek it.
I didn’t mean for blog #9 to be about faith. I don’t know why these words came to me but I guess I’ll leave them. It may be that someone else is searching, and hurting, and lost. I’ve found that most churches weaken faith. They tell you that all you need to do is believe. They don’t teach the power of the Holy Spirit. Jesus himself told us that one would come after him who is greater by far, and he meant the power of Spirit.
When I sit and visualize my faith, I see God (the Source) as one phone and me as the other. It’s the Spirit that is the line between. The connector. I don’t care what name you call It. I often think of it as the universe. We are all part of one body.
Just as the solar system works because of gravity to each other, we, as humans, do the same thing. We revolve around each other, coming closer to some, and farther from others, but there is a connecting energy that unites us, and if we’re lucky, we learn to identify and use it. It truly can refill a starving soul.