Testing the universe without going to hell

When I was a child I used to wonder why people didn’t ask for more evidence that there was a higher power up there ruling over us, because with the proof we’d all be able to live with clarity and all the arguments would cease. However, at the slightest suggestion of asking for proof, my family explained that that would be ‘testing god’, which was so frowned upon that you’d likely go to hell for even thinking it. The idea that you needed proof instead of having blind faith was considered so wrong by the Christian code, it was blasphemous.

Even as a child this classification of blasphemy didn’t sit with me. At the risk of bursting into spontaneous flames I do remember setting a few sneaky tests of my own without telling anyone. I remember coveting the family heirloom of a very old and faded four leaf clover, squished between the pages of my Grandfather’s old bible. As a teen I recall thinking that this four leaf clover was the sign of being the luckiest person in the world and I wanted one of my own, badly. I spent ages sitting in the vast acres of clover on our dairy farm looking for one, to no avail. Every time I walked between the house and sheds on the farm I’d walk with my head down, hoping it was just a matter of time before I found one. I even asked to be left my Grandfather’s special clover in my parents’ will, which indicated how special this was to me (despite no material value). So, this seemed like the perfect test. I remember praying hard for it (the old kind of praying that involved a bit of pleading and begging and even some bargaining) to no avail. Then, it occurred to me that I could test to see if there actually was some kind of god and, tempting persecution to hell forever, I challenged whatever and whoever was up there to send me a four leaf clover as proof of their existence and, in exchange, I’d read the bible. To that day the bible was filled with such challenging language that I just couldn’t stomach it, past Genesis. (For those who don’t know, that’s the first bit).

I put my challenge out there, but (as life has it) things got super busy with school, chores, friends and family activities, I completely forgot about the test. I even forgot my desire for a four leaf clover as I got on with a busy life. It was the very next day as I was wandering across the paddocks, to go and feed our calves (as one of my many daily chores) I felt an urge to look down at my feet. It was as if something was pulling from the centre of my chest driving to my feet, like a rope pulling me down. Right there in front of feet, in my oversized black gum boots (we always bought a few sizes too big to let me grow into them without the cost of constantly replacing them), was a four leaf clover popping its head up. Out of the smallest patch of clover, around a sea of other kinds of grasses, this one little four leaf clover stuck out so I couldn’t miss it. I could hardly believe it at first. I thought it must have been like all those times before when I had mistakenly thought it was a fourth leaf, to find it was only another three leafed clover cuddling up to it. This time I counted; one, two, three, four… all were attached. It was unbelievable; like a miracle! It was that moment that I understood there was no way this could be a coincidence as I’d been looking hard for four leafed clovers for many years before to no avail. That feeling in my body was like nothing else. If it was all luck or chance it would have happened earlier with all the searching I did, and wouldn’t have felt different in my body. It was also as if the moment I gave up, or put it out of my mind, that it could flow my way. Little did I know, that was the beginning of my understanding of how miracles can happen.

I remember being so fearful of telling my family that I’d tested god and ‘he’d’ delivered. My family consider god an old man sitting in a throne above us (and always a man); so I’m referring to it this way, in their voice right now. I was sure they’d remind me that I was going to hell for sure. On top of my inexplicable habit of using the expletives ‘OH MY GOD!’ Or ‘JESUS CHRIST!’ I was surely going to a fiery death this time, for real. I remember running as fast as I could back the house with the four leaf clover carefully held flat between my two palms pressed together to stop it curling or flying away in the wind. My gum boots were making that distinct rhythmic sound only a gum boot wearer will understand – like air pressure being pushed out of a rubber plunger, as the overly large boots flapped against my chins and calves in unison.

The big miracle here was that I didn’t fall on my face with the excitement (I was a super clumsy child, incessantly made fun of for it by my family). I got home and excitedly told Mum that I found a coveted clover of my own. I explained that I had asked god for one and it was there the very next day! The excitement was twofold. First, that I’d found the clover after dreaming of it and searching for years. Second, that I had proof that there was a god of some kind and that all I had to do was ask for what I wanted and it was there. I knew instinctively that there was to be no more wishing for things, but to just to ask outright. Within seconds my mother’s lack of enthusiasm baffled me. For a Christian, I had expected her belief would reinforce what I had discovered. Instead, she said I was ‘just lucky’, it was a coincidence or it was just ‘a matter of time’ before I’d found one because I’d been looking for so long. Nothing I could say could get her to accept what I said. Instead, I was simply reminded how inappropriate it was to test god and to have faith that those who were good would be looked after, and those who were not would be punished. It occurred to me it was like Santa Claus’ naughty and nice list (surely invented by humans to get children to be petrified of misbehaving for a sense of control?!). I asked my mother how it was that miracles happened then, if this wasn’t evidence of a mini-miracle. She explained that it was only the kind of thing that happened to the most holy of people who were so good that they were assured a place in heaven (wherever that might be) or they came from there in the first place (and clearly that wasn’t me).

The idea of asking for anything for myself was also shot down in flames. It was considered one of the ‘seven deadly sins’, defined as greedy. I was told we must not ask for things and that if you were a good person what you need would naturally be offered to you. Even if we were starving to death we’d need to wait until we were offered food so we were not being greedy and putting ourselves ahead of others. This was a symptom of living in a family where I wasn’t to stand up for myself, speak for myself or ask for what I needed. I was to sit down, shut up and take what I was given, always at the discretion of others. I certainly wasn’t allowed to be my own person, have my own emotions, my own ideas, or to ask for anything (even from an invisible force in silence).

So, the ‘proof’ (as I saw it) was put aside, and so too was my obligation to read that damn, challenging, convoluted bible I struggled to understand. Perhaps it was a relief to be ‘off the hook’ about that part?!

Life went on, with all the ups and downs that it has presented to me. I stopped asking for anything; from any humans, or from anyone or anything in any other realm too (rightly or wrongy). The positive side of this is that I have been self-empowered to drive my own life forward all these years. I’ve become capable and independent and taught myself anything that I needed to get done rather than rely on anyone). I can do all those things that some think belong to one gender or another like changing tyres, fixing the points on my car (a mechanical item in older cars that activates the ignition…yep, ‘old school’), digging holes, building things, driving different vehicles, trimming high hedges, using all kinds of tools and fixing all kinds of things. If it comes to be that you are not ‘supposed’ to be asking for help, then the only solution is to learn for yourself. That was on top of things like learning to sew my own clothes or cook and feed myself (although some would question the quality of that!). This sense of independence hasn’t stopped, and now into my fifties and I can do more things for myself like build websites, create simple apps, write copy, do decent graphic design, shoot and edit video and it extends to learning how to take care of my health and mental health without relying on anyone else. This mindset keeps me fresh and innovating constantly. Twenty-two qualifications or certifications later, I’m finding out that this isn’t how everyone sees the world.

There’s a down side to never asking for anything and feeling like no one is there for you. I can feel overwhelmed at times, lonely, over-looked, lacking a sense of self-worthiness (that’s slightly different than lacking self-worth in my view due to a lack of vision rather than lack of self love) and feeling isolated sometimes. It also feels like there isn’t anyone up there in the universe with me on their mind or at least not on the ‘nice’ list. I always expected that I’d be the one that would be going to hell with all those breaches of conduct I’d been warned about by my Christian family and the like-minded community around me.

I do remember moments of despair, begging and pleading for help from that (supposed) man in a throne up high when I just couldn’t cope, or felt like I’d run out of options or ideas on my own. I can categorically say that those prayers were never answered. Without anyone on Earth to ask for help it seemed like a last resort to ask anything of the universe around me. Even if I did ask for help from another human or a higher power, when I thought that I was at my wit’s end, it would be received badly or I’d be let down. If anyone did help, it would be begrudgingly so and sometimes I’d be punished in some way as a form of after-shock. I’d also feel such a huge sense of burden on others. That certainly doesn’t reinforce the idea that asking for anything is a positive experience with positive outcomes.

I won’t lie. Life has been challenging as a human. It is even more challenging, thinking that I was all alone in it. I got to a point, only recently, that all my resources and resourcefulness of being capable and taking care of myself just wasn’t enough any more. I needed help and I had to get brave enough to ask for help. Nope, I didn’t burst into flames. I’ve come to realise that I love helping other people, so why wouldn’t others love to help me too? The harder battle to overcome was asking for some overseeing universe for help and certainly to have any faith that my ask would even be worthy of being answered.

Like that child, curious about testing a universal force, I got to a point that I questioned everything I’d been taught by my family, as so much didn’t add up any more. At the risk of living in perpetuity in hell, I decided to test that higher power once again. I remember being really bold and challenging as I did it too, like a torment or a game challenge against a strong opponent. I was angry and all the force of years of independence and drive was behind this challenge. There was no blind faith by this time, and I was out to prove it was all wrong… all bullshit. I was poised to say ‘See! I was right! There is no god up there’.

I sat quietly in deep thought and said to myself, ‘If I see the words ‘Love is all you need’, in the next twenty-four hours, then it will be no mistake that there is something up there. If you send me ‘All you need is love’ (the other way around), it won’t be good enough either! It has to be the right way as I say it’.

I continued, to that unknown invisible force, ‘Yes, this is a test!!’.

I admit to giggling to myself as I put this challenge out there, knowing it was super cheeky to be so bold, even aggressive and challenging, with the unseen world around me. Yes, a part of me figured it was a make or break moment of either getting the proof I needed, or I would be resigned to that eternity in hell I’d been threatened with, countless times before.

The next morning, I had put the thought aside as the stressful day of responsibilities and being in survival-mode consumed my thoughts. I had crashed on a very kind friend’s couch (when I struggled knowing where I was going to live), and as I wandered the corridor for last minute errands, her chatty housemate started a conversation keeping me from starting my frenzied day.

“Morning”, Stephen offered.

“Morning, Stephen. How’s everything?” I politely offered back (although only partly present in the moment).

“Hope everything has settled down after all that drama” he said, referring to drama in my life that I could no longer hide from anyone.

“Yes, much better thank you”, I spoke inauthentially, and in a way to close the conversation down to get back inside quicker, yet without being impolite.

“Have you been for a walk down the river near here, yet? They’ve built a brand new pathway. It would be a lovely walk for you to unwind, given all the stress going on”, Stephen suggested.

“No, I haven’t. What a lovely thought. Thanks for suggesting it. Have a good day, Stephen” I said, continuing on with the rubbish bin in my hand. In my mind I thought it was a good suggestion – for someone else, or on another day for people who don’t have to deal with what I’m dealing with, that is.

I was completely exhausted with all my life pressures, but like always, determined to make a better life. I wanted a new life so badly, I was pushing every possible way to make something happen for myself. I believed that no one but me was responsible for my outcomes and I had to figure out the way. Sadly, the more I pushed, the worse things seemed to go. It seemed like every avenue I took crashed down before me, and no amount of pushing made anything go quite as I hoped and planned. I would often hear the voices of my family echoing in my mind saying ‘You just have to work harder if you want to succeed in life’, ‘A wife’s place is at home with her husband, not being the CEO or entrepreneur’, ‘Single mothers bleed our hard-earned tax payers money!’, ‘Why don’t you get a real job?’. Those voices, to someone like me who was taught that they don’t deserve things that they want or desire, become our reality. We blame ourselves when the things we strive for don’t go to plan and we feel like more of a failure than our default position of ‘not good enough’ already is, mostly because we’ve never seen anything else.

I came inside and sat at my laptop to begin the day of hustling, although tired of the push and struggle. I looked over my collection of overdue bills and a legal letter of threat from an old supplier who had been so incompetent that they’d cost me tens of thousands of dollars in fixing their issues and in legal fees. When I complained and reported them to their industry body, they invented some counter-sue that forced me into a stream of further legal fees even to get out of it. This was all despite the fact that I was the one in the right! My faith in the legal system now failed me as my faith in just about everything else diminished.

I slumped back in the chair and threw the papers to the ground, as if to give up. I thought for a moment about how to move forward from this point of insurmountable mess, and it all seemed impossible to figure out. It was then I decided to take that leisurely stroll along the creek that I previously thought was a waste of precious time. I needed to clear my head, after all.

I strolled along the creek bank and enjoyed the sunshine at a leisurely pace and took a moment’s peace in the chaos. I’ve become expert at appreciating, what I call, the micro-moments. When the ‘moment’, as some refer to the present time, seems full of too many challenges even within the current hour to truly enjoy. I found there is such a thing as micro-moments – those tiny, wee moments of bliss like seeing the sunshine in its mid morning glory, the sunset for that split second before setting, the feel of the fabric on my skin for the briefest moment, the warmth of a fire as I lift my skirt, the fleeting smile of another human, or even the reaction to my own smile given to another. I admired the beautiful landscaping, newly completed along the path and the freshly laid concrete making bike riding and walking access possible. There is something about fresh white concrete that I love. About three hundred metres down this path, I noticed some of this new concrete had been vandalised and a message was written in the concrete, now dried.

The message said ‘Love is all you need’. Right there, in giant letters at my feet! I stood over the paving in an incredulous state, mind-blown that what I had asked for had, exactly, manifested word for word and the very next day within my (strongly) imposed deadline. I laughed out loud to myself looking around for someone to share the discovery with, but no human was there. I spoke out loud to the invisible space around me as I twirled on the spot with my arms out wide, almost incredulously like someone in a movie might do for effect. For the first time in my life I felt that someone was actually keeping an eye over me and was actually listening; and perhaps even there to help me. I wasn’t alone after all, like I thought I was.

Even though I know now my spirit team had been by my side all my life and helped me in ways I had never realised, this was the first time this really hit home and opened a new door. I felt loved and supported and I had my proof that it WAS okay to ask and to receive. I felt loved even when there were no humans on Earth who seemed to be sending it my way.

“Oh my God! You did it! I am so sorry I tested you! You did it! This is amazing. Thank you so much! Thank you. Thank you”, I gushed and laughed to myself and the unseen (not caring if anyone saw me talking to myself by then, nor the fact I continued to blaspheme).

I took out my phone and took a photo of the message as a memento. I saved it in my favourites section, as that is what this moment has become. I continued on my walk, smiling ear to ear, for the first time in a very long time and despite the chaos drowning me otherwise.

I could not stop laughing to myself about ‘testing’ the higher powers and not yet been struck down by lightning. I was really laughing about this like I’d been so cheeky and yet survived it. I got closer to the end of the trail near the main road, and I looked ahead on the path to be sure I was heading the right way. It was an unfamiliar area I had never been to. Ahead of me sprayed onto the concrete was another message.

Written in red spray paint, it said ‘This is a test of love’, with a heart symbol at the bottom. I seriously. laughed even harder out loud. The idea that the spirit world could have such a sense of humour, and to turn this whole test back on me in this way as if acknowledging the test was too way. It was clearly a test of my faith too! I took a photo of the second message and felt newly inspired hope when I thought it had all drained out of me.

I now know that I do have help to solve my Earthly problems. My only job now is to listen for the inspiration about where to go to find the next logical step. It is not always easy for humans to look for only the one next step, with their minds incessantly filled with worry about the past and fears for the future. Humans have an excessive focus on the end result, taking their mind out of the here and now. The here and now is where the clues reside. Turning off the chatter in the mind of a human is difficult. I am particularly challenged by this, with so many past difficulties, and such big difficulties still ahead of me, and a dose of ADHD on top.

I have learned now that if something is mine to have, that all I have to do is to ask and allow. We don’t have to beg and plead in prayer like many of us are show to do. We don’t need to recite boring and monotonous scripts (they call prayers) that have lost their meaning. We don’t need to truly believe with blind faith either. We just have to ask, and to allow the solutions to come to us. These solutions can be in the form of dreams with clues, visions in meditation, an important message from your spirit team said through the voice of another at just the right time (known as clairdon) and it can feel like a flow state or knowing the next inspired step forward. It certainly doesn’t feel like a push or pull like traditional goal-setting and striving. Creative and athletic people will be most familiar with that state of flow. One thing I can say is that we are all entitled to ask for what we need, if it is in our best interest, the best interest of others or for the good of all. We must ask in fact. Our spirit team respects our right to free will here on Earth and adhere to that to the enthe degree. To the point of being TOTALLY literal. We need to be very overt and exact about our requests – even writing them down to be very clear on what they are. No doubt must be present, even if we don’t blindly believe. We are worthy of getting help from our spiritual community, regardless of what we have done here on Earth and even if we have tested in a challenging way (without any genuine faith or belief in place!).

We are best to ask and allow, but know that it will come to us if it is ours to have. These answers never come as a big flood of Tattslotto wins, or with the lake parting to create a new path, as we can only ever be given something that is ten percent of the way forward, from where we are right now. A huge tumour doesn’t vanish instantly but the cells replace, a day at a time, and bit by bit disappears. Each step of ten percent will eventually take us to where we need to go if we listen and feel for it. Sometimes our desires and wants are much smaller than what is destined for us to experience. We can push hard to fight for something that is actually a limitation and is only stopping us reaching bigger and better things. Sometimes there is challenging learning to be had along the way and we can’t bargain our way out of it either! We can’t have everything we ask for as there’s a whole gamut of rules about what we can have and what we can’t have… and why (more on that later).

The irony of all this is not lost on me. Those clients of mine who have no experience in marketing, and yet demand me to do certain things in my day job (despite me being the marketer with over forty years of experience and still at the leading edge and they’ve never done it before in their life). I look at those clients with the knowing (with slight, and not so slight, annoyance) that they’re limiting themselves by demanding these half-baked strategies, bad design and poor customer experience just because their competitor is doing it or some personal branding ‘expert’ (who hasn’t touched a big brand in their life) is telling them what to do. These terrible strategies are based on someone’s single experience of success as an influencer with no link to sales and blinded by their lack of knowing and seeing. I laugh at myself as I write this today for becoming one of these same people who frustrate me daily know that’s how I am to my own spirit team. I’m often asking for something from spirit or the universe that is without a doubt a limitation in hindsight. I deny myself a future that I don’t feel worthy of or, more so, don’t have the foresight or any reference point to see. My spirit team (luckily) are non-judgemental and unconditionally loving even with all the everyday mistakes. I could take a leaf out of their book, it seems. Note to self.

Let’s not get off track – no; we will not burst into flames and go to hell if we ask for something that helps us, helps others around us or helps all mankind or for our planet. If it isn’t stopping us from achieving something our higher self has destined for us there’s an incredible amount of scope. Ask… and allow.

Test it for yourself! Believe me, the spirit world (whatever you think is up there) WANT you to test them. The world is miraculous when you do.

P.S. In case you are wondering, I make a writer’s protest against conventions by intentionally avoiding capitalisation for words that some deem to be more of a noun than others. Think about gravity – no one capitalises it to become Gravity, do they? So, why should we capitalise another energy field that has consciousness because some of us humanise a neutral force? Having a capital for certain words would suggest it was of human form and had a name, like the rest of us humans do. I know without a doubt that there is no old man in a throne up there, but likewise the atheists are more wrong than they ever thought too. Just saying….