My experience of God is not one that is found through the prism of life in all its business, interaction or out and about through fellowship in the community, for my life is one of isolation and separation, simply to survive. My experience, then, is one, rather, of silence, withdrawal, limitation, inability, pain, negation and indescribable agony, going on decades. It is one of necessary silence and enforced stillness, brought about by continual, unpredictable, repeated brutalising paralysis and pain so vast that its intensity is unimaginable and its continuity over so many many years, flabbergasting.
Into this life, my God has come, gentle, bright, warm, present, compassionate, encouraging, inspiring and uplifting. His peace, truly not of this world, is the gift He brings. A peace that flows around, between, within each painful moment and infills all my being with His Love. It is vast, ever flowing, gentle yet strong, here yet there and everywhere at once.
It becalms me. It strengthens my heart and keeps me safe. It blesses me in its tenderness. It encourages my faith and knowledge. It keeps me in the present moment, rather than in the loss of the past or the fear or longing of the future.
It stills me in my distress. It is golden and resonates with beauty. It is all that sustains me through every moments trial and bodily torment.
When I lose awareness of it, I am battered. When I find it, it is everything, for it lives in me and I become one with God in it and He is ever-present in me.
