This week's post is in memory of my incredible Sunday school teacher, confidant and friend: Paula Bambic, thank you for always being an example of love.
“Dear God, what is it that I am meant to write today?” is often how I begin my morning pages each day, something that I wasn’t comfortable writing let alone saying at the beginning of last year.
Even after I launched a business that advertised my ability to speak to souls that had crossed over, angels and your soul’s own wisdom, I was hoping I could avoid the whole God part of that conversation. And yet, I soon learned that God’s energy is not one that can ever be overlooked, no matter how hard we try.
However, the concept of God was one that I had struggled to trust in after my perceived notions that “He” was solely based in religion, something that I had decided to leave behind in high school.
I had dabbled in different churches and spiritual groups throughout my childhood, finally landing in a temple in the Pacific Palisades called Self Realization Fellowship in sixth grade. Although I protested and rolled my eyes about having to attend yet another Sunday school, there was something different about this one. And the plethora of other girls my age made it more interesting than the others.
Just as my interest could have faded again and moved onto boys and partying, in swooped our incredible Sunday School teacher, Paula. She took over the “older girls” group and Sunday school became a place where we could bring our concerns about those boys and those parties and even our parents to the surface, where no topic was off the table. Oh, and Paula would walk in with an elaborate tray of breakfast goodies each week, filling our tummies and our hearts with permission to be ourselves.
We shared our deepest fears and wildest dreams in a group that felt safe. Sometimes Paula would bring God into the conversation but it never felt forced, just more of an invitation that allowed us to start to experience God’s energy in every part of our lives. We would begin each Sunday with a meditation, that, as we got older we took turns leading, and we finished with wide open hearts. That space and those women hold some of my greatest memories. And, it was truly when I felt most comfortable in my relationship with God; that Our relationship extended beyond those four walls of the church and into whatever I was experiencing in my life.
Then, at the peak of our high school experience, when all of us were driving ourselves to church each week to be together, the church shut down our group, telling us that Paula wasn’t leading us “correctly” and so we were no longer allowed to meet. For a month or so we would meet up at a local restaurant or coffee shop, but the deflation had begun and soon we all went our separate ways.
In my heartbreak over losing this incredibly meaningful experience, I became angry. And first directed it at the church, but then at God, pushing away Our relationship as I yelled, “If you were a part of everything, you wouldn’t take this from me!”
As my relationship with God dissolved, I decided to do things on my own, knowing that I wouldn’t let myself down the way that He had. And for many years I saw that relationship in the rear view mirror as though it was always nearby but I couldn’t let it back in. Only in times of desperation did I use God’s name to try to understand what was happening, pleading to make it easier.
So, when God’s energy began moving closer as I opened my channel, I wasn’t sure how to approach the relationship. So I wrote a letter, which started:
“Dear God, I am so angry with you…”
I scribbled angry remarks for pages and pages as tears streamed down my face, blaming Him and asking why He didn’t help with any of the things that I needed.
And then, as though I had been washed clean, all of the anger evaporated and all was calm, as though God’s energy was right within me, glowing and bright and not as the man in the sky that I had imagined when I was young, but like a warm hug with a more feminine presence.
“Welcome home, my child,” I heard, “I have always been here, you just weren’t ready to let me in. Now we are ready.”
My body vibrated and I began to write again, this time in conversation. Each time I asked a question, my pen would fly across the page in response, reminding me of all the times in my life that I had questioned why something had happened were the moments that had led me to exactly where I was- with the family I had dreamed of and a soul-led business of my dreams.
“And you shall call yourself The Soul Sourceress,” came through above my ears as our conversation continued, the word S-O-U-R-C-E spelling itself above my eyeline.
“NOPE, definitely not.” I replied. “That's a hard pass.”
“Your course will be called The Soul Sourcing Course, as you are meant to teach others that they have the ability to source their own soul for the answers they’re seeking.”
“I’ll call the course that,” I agreed, “but I am gonna pass on the name.”
“The Soul Sourceress,” came through again and my pen moved across the page so I could now physically see it in front of me.
“Really?” I asked, my throat forming a lump as I imagined this being the equivalent of spelling the word W-E-I-R-D-O across my forehead. For weeks I tried to push away the name, but it kept returning over and over again…
To be continued next week in my newsletter.
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