Clinging to my own stories
I spend a lot of time in a dreamworld. I always have. My imagination is very vivid and strong and it is a gift and can be a wonderful tool. Sometimes I believe that my imagination is open enough and wide enough to accept and thus receive more of what is. Maybe it is sometimes that way. But any tool can be used to expand or to contract. Any tool can be used in love or in fear.
I cling to my story lines often out of a sense of insecurity. I want the world to be predictable. I want to feel some sense of control. So when I am scared, those things that console me go around and around in my head. I comfort myself that way. But I also limit myself that way. I ask God, “Why can’t I feel your love?” I guess I need to let go of the surrogate love first. Let go of this pretend world.
This is a repeat of what I have said over and over again. But this is who I am. This is Suzie. My struggle may seem so simple and predictable to the people around me, but from within it feels impassable. Impenetrable. Patience, little girl. Let yourself melt into the smile.
Your comment, “I ask God, “Why can’t I feel your love?” I guess I need to let go of the surrogate love first.”, reminded me of this:
“Therefore must no stranger find his way into the city of the heart, so that the Incomparable Friend may come unto His own place – that is, the effulgence of His Names and Attributes, not His Essence (exalted is He), for that Peerless King hath been and will be holy for everlasting above ascent or descent. Therefore today ‘victory’ neither hath been nor will be opposition to anyone, nor strife with any person; but rather what is well-pleasing is that the cities of [men's] hearts, which are under the dominion of the hosts of selfishness and lust, should be subdued by the sword of the Word, of Wisdom, and of Exhortation. Everyone, then, who desireth ‘victory’ must first subdue the city of his own heart with the sword of spiritual truth and of the Word, and must protect it from remembering aught beside God: afterwards let him turn his regards towards the cities of [others'] hearts.”
‘Abdu’l-Bahá, A Traveller’s Narrative, p. 63