Wouldn’t it be grand if someone loved us totally, beyond our wildest dreams that enwrapped us in a comforting blanket of unconditional love, no matter what we did?
Good news: we do! We are so loved by a God who really does care about our personal situations. Nothing we do or don’t do will change that. When they say that “God is Love”, that’s exactly what they mean. Our Creator is Pure, constant and unconditional Love.
This concept of God being unconditional Love is a little difficult to grasp and live by if you were raised as I, viewing God as a stern, vindictive judge settled in behind the “Patty’s Life Leger” tallying my “good deeds” and my “sins”. No deed would evade the ever -watchful eye of God. Fear and guilt served as great motivators keeping me in the line marked “obedient”.
I gave God human qualities. Pictures of God usually painted a grim face of someone that I didn’t want to upset. “Be a good girl now, Patty, you don’t want to make God angry”, ran in my mind as a behavior modification tape. Thank goodness that I finally took control of my own “religious lessons” and discovered something quite different.
But the religious lessons and the guilt associated with my religious upbringing still gnaw in my mind today. The strings attached serve as a filter in my emotions despite my intellectual growth. I work to quiet that “critical voice” that worries, judges, and fears.
To help find that “Peace Within”, I have taken the beautiful prayer of St. Francis of Assisi, rewriting it giving “guilt sponges” like myself, and maybe you, the peace and comfort that we need, knowing that we are in the ALL- LOVING hands of God. You can go to my website for your free download of this: http://pattykogutek.com/prayer-for-peace-within/
Prayer for Peace Within
Website: http://pattykogutek.com/home-prequel/
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