Bless a thing and it will bless you.
Emmet Fox
A radical shift has taken place in my life over these last three years. Once one of the most negative people I knew, I am transforming into one of the most positive. But by positive I do not mean happy all the time. I do not mean I am overly chipper either. By positive I mean my life is charged with an ability to move constructively forward in the face of a disease that wants me dead. The disease I carry is addiction. And all real addictions are fatal. So I do not say that lightly. I carry within me a disease whose very symptomology indicates a propensity towards negative, gloom and doom thinking–grandiose, self-centered thinking, fantasy-based thinking, lust and greed based thinking—any type of negative thinking that starts running through my head with the express intention of making me uncomfortable enough to seek relief in my addictions. And the shift? I do not have to live my life based on those impulses anymore.
With the help of friends, whom God works through, I walk a free man. As a result of this shift, my whole outlook upon life has changed. Today I look at the time I hit bottom in my addictions as perhaps the biggest blessing of my life. For the word blessing is related to an old Germanic word meaning to mark with blood. (Online Etymology Dictionary). In other words, some blessings are wrought with pain. Now I choose to look at everything in my life as an angel trying to tell me something. And yes, there are dark angels in the sense of some come bearing news I would rather not hear. For the word angel means messenger in the old Greek (ibid.).
Therefore, when a temptation comes into my head, I ask it what it wants, I ask it what it’s trying to tell me. When the old fear that something bad is going to happen to me or someone I love creeps into my prayers, I ask it what it wants. When I have some pain in my body, I ask it what it is trying to tell me. I make every attempt to not resist the pain or the fear or the anger—I simply move towards it and ask it what has come to tell me. This isn’t always easy, this isn’t always fun, and sometimes it doesn’t feel good. But the more I can move with the messenger, not wrestle with the angel, but rather dance with it, the easier the message is to bear.
Further, I am under no delusion today that just because I am actively using the Law of Attraction to manifest my dreams that this means I will never again stub my toe, or get sick again, or have something tragic happen in my life. I do not believe I attract EVERYTHING that comes into my life. There are other people in the world after all, and we are all sorting out karma, if you will, relationships, if you will, that span lifetimes. In addition, I am moving through issues that run deep in my heredity, and as these spirits surface, sometimes things spiral in difficult directions, that may include difficult people or circumstances. Ultimately I am in charge of my life however, and am able to make healthy choices in terms of how I deal with whatever life brings—whether I attract it or not.
To sum it all up, today I am able to take positive actions even when I feel sad or afraid. I am able to utilize helpful tools such as EFT when the message is especially difficult to handle. I am able to view everything as a messenger, as an angel, and because I believe God wants me “happy, joyous, and free,” then all of the angels, dark or light, are there to help me get closer to Him and to my fellows. They are there to help me dance closer to serving God and my fellows. They are there to help me rise up out of self-centeredness into the embrace of God and my fellows. And so I am learning to bless the messengers in my life, to bless them with my attention—the ones that feel good and the ones that feel bad. I am able to ask my emotions, my body, my disease, my writing, and my music: “What are you trying to tell me? What is it you need? How can I use you to help others?”
And, at the end of the day, all the messages are distilled into one message: “Love and serve God and your fellows–use this experience, thought, emotion– whatever it is–to love and serve God and your fellows–turn everything into a blessing by blessing everything that comes. Give thanks for all things—for God is good all the time.”
Copyright Joseph Anthony of the Wonder Child Blog