'Dear God, thank you for healing my life. I open myself up to receive the love and the guidance that you give me, so that I might be an example of peace, truth and unconditional love for my family and the world around me.'
I said variations of this prayer for a very long time. I wanted my family to feel whole and I knew it had to start with me. I knew before I could love them unconditionally, I had to heal the turmoil inside of me. I discovered over time that as I followed God's path and grew in my truth, it has allowed my family to grow, too.
A year-and-a-half ago I picked up a tape at the library by Deepak Chopra regarding the seven levels of consciousness. The levels start with innocence, then move on to the ego, to the achiever, to the seeker, and on into different levels of union consciousness. My gut told me the tape was for my husband, Steve, to see.
Steve watched the tape, got very emotional and then told me he no longer wanted to be an achiever. He wanted to be a seeker of truth. He wanted to take time off and let everything go. Some might have called this a mid-life crisis...he is a FEW years older than me... but what we both knew was that he wanted to find his purpose and inner peace.
I was thrilled for about a split second until he said, "I want to let everything go. I want to sell the house."
Yikes! Be careful what you ask for. I had prayed for some time that Steve would find inner peace. I just didn't know it was going to shake up my world so much. He wanted to get rid of my home. So much for my world of peace and stability!
As always, God works in beautiful, wondrous ways. I finally got past my tears and fears and agreed that this would be the best path for us to take. We sold our house without it ever going on the market, for full price I might add, and then found ourselves on an adventure that we would have never imagined.
We thought me wanted to move to the country, but then found ourselves confused because the television industry was revealing itself to me as an avenue to share my message. We decided to stay in Southern California, but had no idea where we would live. We knew we wanted to rent a home, but soon discovered it to be very difficult to find one that was big enough for our whole family, including our little Maltese. Then, out of the blue, a realtor called us and said, "I heard you decided to stay here for awhile. I just sold a home to a man who has now decided to go abroad. It is five years old, has four bedrooms, three baths and is five blocks from the beach. He would like a family to rent it. Would you be interested?"
Would we be interested? We couldn't believe our good fortune.
For the next year-and-a-half we realized it wasn't just good fortune, but it was God guiding us and taking care of us. We set an intention for ourselves that we were fully surrendering to God, so that we might live for the highest good, bringing light and love into the world.
The adventure became a roller coaster ride of ups and downs. One of the things Steve most wanted to do in his time off was to escape and spend time on our boat. It had been in Mexico for several years and his first intention was to bring it back up to Southern California. Well, wouldn't you know it, just a few hours from making its way home, the boat caught on fire and sunk to the bottom of the ocean. Steve was devastated. I knew there had to be a gift.
That gift soon revealed itself by showing us that Steve wasn't allowed to escape on the boat. He had set an intention to find himself, so the universe said, "Ugh, ugh. No escaping for you."
Then we lost our butts in the stock market. A big part of our nest egg was there. That was scary. Steve had to start looking at his limiting beliefs as the protector and provider of the family. My work had yet to take off and so therefore we really didn't have an income. We prayed for guidance. People began to call offering us great investment opportunities. We were tentative to make the deals for it meant we had to dip into our nest egg. We prayed for signs to show us what to do. We received the messages we needed, sometimes within a day, and made the investments. They soon revealed themselves as gifts from God. Steve and I quickly learned that when we turned our worries over to God, we were provided for.
Every time money got tight, we both prayed for God to guide us and every time we were given a gift. We both learned from this that when your heart has an intention to sit in truth and to be love, the universe wants to help you in any way it can. If you need more abundance and financial assistance and believe that you are worthy of receiving this kind of love, then it will come to you, very easily without any effort. The only effort you have to do is to have the courage to open up and get to know you. That's what Steve did. He finally got the courage to open up to the truth. As a result he discovered that he doesn't have to buy into those protector/provider pictures anymore. God is the protector and the provider.
This has been an intense time of healing and learning for both Steve and me. As I have watched him grow, I have had to learn to be neutral to his process and realize what his limiting beliefs are and what mine are. But because we have both looked for the gift in every situation during this time, whether it seemed bad or good, we have grown closer with each other and with God.
Steve and I are so excited to see God working in our lives as individuals and as a couple. We see life unfolding before us. My work is taking off right at the perfect time and right when I'm ready for it. And Steve has a new company. He is one of the owners of ConsciousOne.com, along with an amazing group of individuals whose intention is to bring peace and love into the world.
Steve decided to take a step into truth a year-and-a-half- ago and, as a result, I found more of my own. And even though it got scary at times due to not knowing where the adventure was going, we stayed in our intentions to be love and light. What we found was a greater love than we've ever known.
Terri Amos is a spiritual coach, motivational speaker, wife, mother and step-mom. It was on her path to self-discovery, self-acceptance, and true authenticity that Terri was guided through meditation to share the knowledge she was experiencing first hand in a unique journal that is spiritual, practical, revelatory and prescriptive. Titled, Message Sent, the book chronicles her day-to-day journey of challenges and healing with love, candor and humor. In addition, she offers the reader the benefit of her insight and inspirations and shares the tools she found helpful to herself.
About the Author
Terri Amos is a spiritual coach, motivational speaker, wife, mother and step-mom.
Click here to find out more about Terri Amos