Have Faith. Your Prayers are Manifesting.

As a young girl growing up in New England, I was raised in a strict Catholic household. We abided by many religious tenets: no meat on Friday; attending Sunday mass each week followed by stale doughnuts, cold hot chocolate and conversations in the rectory; and participating in religious education through CCD. My brother became an altar boy and I lobbied to be an altar girl (“it just isn’t done”) and we engaged in numerous church activities in and around our community. All the while, I was being taught to blindly follow the rules, show a reverence and sometimes a fear of God and that above all else, I should have faith in the All Mighty. It never felt quite right, but what did I know, I was just a kid?

As a teenager I noticed that many of the people who had been out engaging in lots of “uncatholic” like activities the night before, were now at church sitting in the pews next to me, bleary eyed and hungover. That’s when I began in earnest a questioning of my religion. Or more importantly, my — faith. Faith in what? Faith, in whom I wondered. This query was ever present and one that I examined for at least 60 mins a week, every time I trotted dutifully into mass.

Then in my sophomore year of college my first love was tragically killed in a car accident. At the exact moment of learning of his death, my heart broke into a million tiny pieces and any faith that I had been holding onto simply vanished. The senseless death had me searching for someone to blame and with no obvious choice, I closed the door on faith. I let it all go.

That decision came with an entitled ‘Fuck You’ to God and to any sort of spiritual connection. I went rogue and pushed the edges of uniformity that I had succumbed to over the years and experienced a sense of religious freedom that I had not before. Of course, those feelings began to wane after the newness rubbed off and for many years I just drifted along without an anchor. It wasn’t until my late twenties that a spark was re-ignited, and I began craving and yearning for a deeper connection. The spark launched a spiritual exploration that has been my guiding light ever since.

Looking back all these years later, I am now able to see the gift of letting go afforded me. That closed door to organized religion opened my heart and my mind to a journey that has influenced the woman that I am today. When I stopped searching outside of myself for something to believe in, I began to cultivate the ability to look inwards and then foster a rich an abundant overflowing source of love waiting to be expressed. This gift has helped me to manifest a belief in a connection to something greater than, and yet, still of me. It has helped me to nurture my inner knowing and intuition that I now am more able to lean into. Still, the most significant gift it has offered, is the one of faith, not the faith the I was told to have or the one that felt like lip service every time I muttered it, but Faith in its truest form — complete trust.

Admittedly, this has been a long game that’s far from over. The good news is that the days I rely on and genuinely believe that my prayers are manifesting, are starting to outnumber the days when I don’t. For quite some time I have been operating with an increasing belief in a larger universal plan and the small but mighty role that I play in it. This Faith allows me to live each day with more presence and with a profound sense of being taken care of even when I am riddled with fear.

I recognize and honor that Faith comes in many forms and is an individual and personal choice. For me,“church” these days is now comprised of meditating, writing, meaningful connection with others, more time in nature, and I can assure you that I visit far more often than once a week. How does Faith show up for you?