How to Meet God Face to Face
As a child growing up, I always felt lost and alone. I felt very aware of my backside as if I was walking both forward and behind me. Perhaps, it was more like I was following myself. After I got older, I learned that feeling was called self-conscious.
Fear of saying something wrong or hurting others kept me from speaking my mind. Mostly, I wanted to disappear and felt no one would ever miss me. I had to keep reminding myself I was a nobody. I just someone who made a lot of mistakes, couldn’t talk fluently and was a real oddball. Each time I reached for the sky, aspiring to be noticed, I was shot down. Just knowing that I had to remind myself I don’t deserve what I really wanted to be. I wanted to be a star, and win awards and be told what I wonderful person and writer I was.
The thought I was the only one on earth who feel so isolated and alone overwhelmed me at times. Since I had few friends, growing up, I didn’t have a way to express these feelings nor know any different. I didn’t dare tell my family since I knew they would try to talk me out of it or get mad at me for feeling that way. My Mom always said not to allow myself to feel what I felt. Feelings weren’t important, but without them, I knew I wouldn’t be human. Somehow, knowing I wasn’t supposed to feel bad made those bad feelings stronger.
Many times throughout my life, I searched for the meaning of life. I sought the god that my Catholicism said cared so much for me. As a teen, I surmised that this Supreme Being couldn’t possibly love me. If he did, then why would he put in a life that was lonely and no one could relate to me?
After I crossed the bridge from Christianity to metaphysical, I saw that all paths do lead to one Supreme Being. Still, I felt so alone and couldn’t find that one group that I could relate to that also related to me. I still felt like this Spirit had turned its back on me.
One night, as I tried to sleep, sending out a prayer to this being, saying, as usual, I sought his or her face. I wanted desperately to know why I was created the way I was. I longed to know what I had to do to succeed in life. To find my one career and passion and have others agree that this is where I belonged. Writing.
My whole being called me to write.
As I prayed, through my closed eyes, I felt myself lift up into a void. A bunch of clouds formed in front of me. Slowly, the clouds formed a nose, eyes, mouth and a hand extended, picking me and pulled me closer to it.
“Greetings, Merri. I’ve heard your prayers. Your life isn’t easy, but I am with you always. Guiding you and directing you. You will make it.”
The Being said more, but I don’t remember all we talked about.
I have tried to put that anguish I have felt in my characters to some extent. Most of my characters also search for the face of the Creator of all Worlds. In my series, Indigo Travelers, most of them will have their face-to-face meeting with the Creator of all Worlds that has been named Albagoth. whom is gender neutral.
Yet as I reread my second book, I see I have not done a very good job of it. I am faced with a lot of revising and actually trying to get into the skin of my three main teen characters.
Writing is like acting. Only, it is the writer who steps into each character of the book and has to make each real to the reader. It takes stepping out of oneself and stepping into a whole new body, soul and being.
I still strive to be noticed. I strive to have someone who has made it successfully in the publishing field to notice me and assist me to make a profound impact on the larger world. Still, when I try, there are others who come to me to remind me I won’t ever be noticed or make that impact. I sense what they are really saying is that I’m not a good enough writer and they are so much better than me.
It takes effort and the desire to stick to the marketing, studying it all inside and out. It takes not allowing myself to get overwhelmed with all I have to do to revise my second book and also getting the third book finished.
I still feel so alone at times. Yet all writers feel that way unless they are blessed with being able to make close friends who relate to them and accept them. It has to be a mutual acceptance at that.
Do you ever feel alone like this? How do you resolve that loneliness feeling?
