Quiet Reflections and Prayers
There was pain in returning to wholeness. It was painful to reach back to parts of myself stuck in the past. And it was painful to begin to feel the pain of others as my own pain.
But there was no turning back. There was a tenderness in tapping into truth that I was unwilling to let go of again. And so I continued to meet each unfolding moment from a state of prayer — trusting in life to meet me. It felt like a huge risk, but I had been in that place before.
There were times when the stories around me were complex. I knew the only hope was a miracle — often more than one. And so I vowed to clear my own mind and heart and become one with the quiet prayer that had carried me that far.
I vowed to hold the remaining bits of trauma in my heart — knowing they would be transforned into healing words. And I held each new moment as it unfolded.
Words pointed back to miracles past, comforting pieces of my heart and connecting me in each moment to a timeless, unshakeable higher me. But my prayer had no words.
Thank you for courage
to follow where my heart
would lead
and for resolve
to stand firmly
through challenges within
the creative flow
when it would be easier
to take a different path.
Bless all who dare
to continue to create
with love
and those who have not
yet begun.
Amen
After a while,
I learned to listen
to the quiet prayer within.
It began as a whisper
without words,
but its presence was enough
to light my path
when I felt most challenged.
It reminded me of
the all that was miraculous
and led to a place
of compassion for myself
and others here at this time
as souls in human form.
Following a prayer from
a deeper part of me
felt more like listening than
creating plans of action.
It meant turning down
the volume on old patterns
of thought and trusting my own
inner resonance in deciding
where to place my feet.
It was comforting to feel
the familiarity as I moved
a little closer to my own
quiet prayer.
There was a willingness to show up in each new moment — letting go a little more of the continuous narration of mind — a deeper surrender into the silent space of What Now? It took a bit of adjusting to the inner quiet — a retuning to more subtle thoughts and experiences.
What Now wasn’t bound to old storylines. It was a place of possibilities and seeing from a higher view — where I was free to listen to and follow a quiet prayer instead.
The more I listened to life, the more I noticed the part of me that could hold and let go of any experience. There was a softening each time I stood a little more firmly in my heart and dared to linger in the silent space.
Words formed out of this place soothed and echoed in places that had seemed unhealable. And there was tenderness where there had been only pain.
There were times when I sensed listening for inner resonance and trusting the quiet whisper of truth in each moment had become a little more important. I had learned the importance of stopping to listen to life and gained a respect for its mystery, but it was during these times when I was called more deeply within that I began to notice just how much I could soften my experience in the world and be in a state of listening prayer in any moment.
The new chosen path was an unbelievable contrast to the old. From the outside, it didn’t always appear to be all that different, but from the inside it was clearly new. Instead of being pulled under by thoughts and experiences, all that appeared in my mind and in the world was seen as raw pieces of one continuous prayer.
It took a little practice to become willing to walk a new path. Finding it meant reaching inside for the light needed to take each step. It meant remaining willing to listen to life and feel my way, even through uncomfortable experiences. It meant trusting a whisper of truth to become louder and the most chaotic experiences to soften and be used to create something beautiful, but not all at once and not all alone.
Laurie's Notes 