I was terrified – crying out to Him with all of my heart. I couldn’t believe God was speaking to me, nor could I believe He would say this … ask this. Not now. I grew up in a non-religious or spiritual home. We neither read the Bible nor attended church, except for Easter Sunday. I began talking to God at 13 when I discovered my parents were not my biological parents. It didn’t matter that I never heard a response from Him. He was my “imaginary friend.”

At 26 I married, and we had our only child eighteen months later. Our daughter was hospitalized twice in her first 90 days with different forms of RSV pneumonia. We struggled financially. While I worked two jobs, my husband ran his own resume business so he could stay with our child during the day and prevent another bout of RSV. The new business produced income but took all that it made to continue. We had no health insurance and no way to obtain any for a child who was hospitalized so early in life.

Eight months after her birth, I was involved in a car accident and unable to work for months. I remember thinking, my God, what’s next? Why are you punishing me? The stress was unbearable. Times were excruciatingly difficult, and we were approaching financial disaster. For the first time I truly felt helpless, and real depression set in.

One Sunday afternoon, our child suddenly became very ill. Within 15 minutes, she changed from an active two-year-old playing with her toys, to a lifeless form lying on our living room floor, unable to keep anything down. Her temperature was 102 degrees and climbing. My mom, who lived right behind me, told me to bring her over. We bathed her in cool water and swabbed her down with alcohol to reduce her fever, but still it soared.

We gave her Tylenol, but the medicine wouldn’t stay down. Repeated messages left with her pediatrician’s answering service brought no replies.

As she lay on Mom’s floor, I suddenly remembered a lady at work who was an evangelical holy roller. At their church, they laid hands on each other and people were healed. The lady never explained how they did it, but it was worth a try. Crying and praying, I kneeled over my child, laid my hands upon her tiny back and begged God to heal her. I promised God all kinds of things. I begged for forgiveness. I even begged for her illness to be put upon me. My mother watched in amazement.

The doctor finally returned my calls at 6:45 PM saying he had called in a prescription to a local pharmacy. It closed at 7:00 PM on Sunday and was at least 15 minutes away. Driving down the road past the church where outdoor sermons were preached from a grounded boat each Sunday, I began to cry hysterically. It hit me that my child could suffer brain damage or die from the high fever. I hated to leave her, but I had to get the medicine. Again I begged God to heal her tiny, innocent body, but this time, I was screaming it out loud in the car through the tears and mucus streaming down my face.

It was then that I heard a firm but loving male voice. The loudness of it seemed to fill the van, but it also seemed to be just in my head. I stopped breathing. “Will you give her to me?” the voice asked. “What?” I screamed. I gulped my first breath in seconds, wiping my eyes and nose on the sleeve of my shirt, and glanced around my van to see if someone had somehow slipped inside.

A gain, the voice spoke, louder yet softer somehow. It asked again, “Will you give her to me?”
My mind spun in circles. Had I somehow slipped off of the edge of reality? This was a real possibility considering the stress I’d been under for the last few months. I began a series of small “systems checks.” Am I driving? Yes. Is it evening? Yes. Is today Sunday? Yes. I even pinched myself on the arm to be sure I wasn’t dreaming or hallucinating. That hurt! The voice waited patiently for me to process what was happening.

“Will you give her to me?” He asked.

”How can you ask me that question?” I screamed. “Are you trying to tell me it’s already too late? Have you already taken her and are preparing me so when I get to my mom’s house and find she’s dead, I can cope with it? Why would you ask this of me?”

I felt so angry and scared that I had actually pulled over into a grocery store parking lot and wondered if I should just go back home. I couldn’t stop shaking. If God was taking my child and I headed back home right now, maybe I could spend the last few moments with her in my arms as she left this world and returned to Him.

A s this last terrible thought crossed my mind, I realized that, in Truth, she was already His. She was “on loan” to us from God. I cried so hard I nearly choked. As this reality sunk in, I whispered the answer through my tears.

“Yes, I will give her back to You, if I must.” It was the single most profound moment of my life. My heart was breaking, yet at the same time was relieved because the fear had gone. I couldn’t lose what I didn’t possess. This was the first time since her birth that I fully realized my little girl belonged not to me, but to her Creator.

A s if He were right there listening to my thoughts, He said, “I created her. I breathed life into her. She is mine.” “I understand,” I responded, sobbing. “I don’t want to lose her, Father, but I will give her back to you.”

“Well done, my good and faithful servant,” He said quietly in the most loving voice I’d ever heard.This startled me almost more than actually hearing the voice. “How can I be a good and faithful servant when I don’t even attend church regularly?”

The pharmacy was closed, and I arrived back at Mom’s house within 20 minutes. Climbing the stairs, an indescribable surreal peace filled me. I knew I would open that door to find my mother hunched over my daughter’s lifeless body. I didn’t know how I would handle it.

“Ma-ma,” my daughter said, as she greeted me at the door, “I feel all better now.”

She had a big cup of juice in one hand and a cherry Popsicle in the other as she hugged my leg, turned around and ran off to play. It was as if she had never been sick at all. The fever was gone, and her appetite had returned as if nothing had happened.

I glanced at my mom who was sitting in her chair munching a Popsicle. “What happened to her, Mom?” “I don’t know,” Mom replied. “Her temperature shot up to 104 degrees right after you left and I couldn’t get her to wake up. I got up to call an ambulance, and when I came back she was sitting up asking for something to drink. It happened about 20 minutes ago.”

What I learned that day changed me forever. God is real. I never needed to know that more than in the moment He spoke to me. What I thought was mine, never was; she is His. And I was “enough” for God, just the way I was.

About the author:
Rita Carlson is a 45-year-old Tampa native who explores her creative side making and selling jewelry. She and her daughter volunteer their time for the homeless and support other local nonprofit organizations.

Get the book with more stories at amazon: When God Spoke to Me

I recently had the pleasure of viewing an inspiring documentary titled Hasten Slowly: The Journey of Sir Laurens van der Post.

Sir Laurens spent a great deal of time with the Kalahari Bushmen, collecting their stories. For me, his extraordinary insights sum up in a few short paragraphs the essential wish that virtually all human beings harbor:

The Bushman in the Kalahari Desert talk about two “hungers.” There is the Great Hunger and there is the Little Hunger. The Little Hunger wants food for the belly; but the Great Hunger, the greatest hunger of all, is the hunger for meaning. There’s ultimately only one thing that makes human beings deeply and profoundly bitter, and that is to have thrust upon them a life without meaning.

There is nothing wrong in searching for happiness. But of far more comfort to the soul is something greater than happiness or unhappiness, and that is meaning. Because meaning transfigures all. Once what you are doing has for you meaning, it is irrelevant whether you’re happy or unhappy. You are content – you are not alone in your Spirit – you belong.

(Sir Laurens van der Post from Hasten Slowly, a film by Mickey Lemle)

As is related so eloquently, “the Great Hunger, the greatest hunger of all, is the hunger for meaning.” The Shift is an invitation—both in this book and in the film of the same name—to explore the process of moving away from an aimless life to one filled with meaning and purpose. I’ve been engaged for many years in helping people (including myself) reach their highest potential.

I have now made almost 70 trips around our sun, and the one thing that stands out very clearly is that all of us want our lives to have purpose and meaning. In this book, I elucidate what seems to be required to reach a state of conscious, enlightened awareness that nurtures a life of purpose and meaning.

When the movie that this book is derived from was first released, it was titled Ambition to Meaning, yet many people were unclear about what those words meant or what the film was about. It seems that the title was a bit misleading, perhaps indicating that I’d made a documentary or just captured one of my lectures on film.

During the inaugural national tour when the movie was introduced to select audiences, I expressed my view about the title’s confusion to the director and the executive producer. I said, “I love this movie; however, if I were doing it over, I’d give it a different title. I’d call it The Shift, because this term is referred to throughout the picture and is what has to take place for a person to move From Ambition To Meaning.” To my delight – and to the credit of the director and producer – within a week the film had a new title. Even so, this notion of From Ambition To Meaning wouldn’t go away.

As I contemplated how to present this essential message in a companion book to the movie, a deep meditation led me to use these four words as the book’s organizational format. This is precisely what you now hold in your hands (or have on your book reader).

All of us on this glorious human voyage into adulthood have to make some shifts, or transitions, during the trip. Hopefully, we will go beyond the first two mandatory ones and move on to those shifts in consciousness that lead to a life filled with purpose. Now what do I mean by this?

The first shift that we all make takes us from non-being to being; from Spirit to form; from the invisible to our corporeal world of things, boundaries, and stuff. So, the first chapter of this book is titled “From. . . .” In my own humble (and, I’m certain, imperfect) fashion, I attempt to define the undefinable using words and phrases that are mere symbols of that which defies description.

Nevertheless, it’s what I’ve come to view as what that world of invisible Spirit, from which all things originate and to which they all return, looks like. The next shift I portray is the shift from From to Ambition – thus, “Ambition . . .” is the title of Chapter 2. Ambition is the phase where we take on an ego self that is the opposite of the place of Spirit from which we came. Ego in this context is our false self.

These are two major and mandatory shifts that we undertake in this voyage of our humanness. Many of us reach the end of our life journey having only made those two transitions. Ambition, sadly, is often the end of the life story. In my film and in this book, I propose that there are two additional shifts available to all of us. When we proceed with them, the “life without meaning” that Sir Laurens referred to isn’t the end of the story. We can all choose to make the leap past the second shift of the ego-driven ambition.

The third chapter is titled “To . . . ,” signifying arriving at a place in our minds where we realize that we have an option to make a U-turn away from the false self and begin heading back in the direction of our origination – or what I’m calling our “Fromness.”

This new phase of our life journey is a return to Spirit and an invitation to the invisible Divine realm to replace ego’s dominance. We learn how to tame ego as we head To a life of meaning and purpose, nurtured by our Source of being.

The shift described in Chapter 4 is “Meaning.” As we abandon that false self and begin our return trip back to Source while we’re still alive, we live by a new set of guidelines. We discover that the laws of the material world do not necessarily apply in the presence of the Meaning that is encouraged by our shift to Source. Manifestation of miracles and newly discovered synchronicity begin to populate the landscape of life. Indeed, Meaning is what now defines all of the moments of our existence.

In my experience, unfortunately, ego’s Ambition is the final purpose of so many lives – yet there are signs we can notice that signal those two additional shifts that release us from our illusion of ego comforts. We can do an about-face and head back to the place of Spirit in a third shift. And then, in the fourth shift, we achieve a life of Meaning and purpose by rededicating our Ambition to the fulfillment of our authentic self.

We can fulfill our greatest calling when we consciously undertake the journey From Ambition To Meaning. We can transform our individual lives and, as an additional bonus, influence the destiny of our sacred planet as well.

For more information: The Shift – by Dr. Wayne Dyer

A boat docked in a tiny Mexican village. An American tourist complimented the Mexican fisherman on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took him to catch them.

“Not very long,” answered the Mexican.

“But then, why didn’t you stay out longer and catch more?” asked the American.

The Mexican explained that his small catch was sufficient to meet his needs and those of his family.
The American asked, “But what do you do with the rest of your time?”

“I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, and take a siesta with my wife. In the evenings, I go into the village to see my friends, have a few drinks, play the guitar, and sing a few songs. I have a full life.”

The American interrupted, “I have an MBA from Harvard and I can help you! You should start by fishing longer every day. You can then sell the extra fish you catch. With the extra revenue, you can buy a bigger boat.”

“And after that?” asked the Mexican.

“With the extra money the larger boat will bring, you can buy a second one and a third one and so on until you have an entire fleet of trawlers. Instead of selling your fish to a middle man, you can then negotiate directly with the processing plants and maybe even open your own plant. You can then leave this little village and move to Mexico City, Los Angeles, or even New York City! From there you can direct your huge new enterprise.”

“How long would that take?” asked the Mexican.

“Twenty, perhaps twenty-five years,” replied the American.

“And after that?”

“Afterwards? Well my friend, that’s when it gets really interesting, ” answered the American, laughing. “When your business gets really big, you can start buying and selling stocks and make millions!”

“Millions? Really? And after that?” asked the Mexican.

“After that you’ll be able to retire, live in a tiny village near the coast, sleep late, play with your children, catch a few fish, take a siesta with your wife and spend your evenings drinking and enjoying your friends.”

And the moral of this story is: ……… Know where you’re going in life… you may already be there.

I once found myself in a situation in which I shared my living space with three other persons. As we each had very different experiences and overall goals in life, and vastly different approaches to how we lived our lives as individuals, we often experienced frustration and miscommunications in our dealings together, especially at first.

Constancy and accountability.
For example, one of my housemates was an Army veteran, who after years as a sergeant, left the service to pursue a civilian life in the larger world. Sergeant’s expectations included keeping things tidy, working together as a team on projects involving the house, and clockwork precision in all matters great and small.

When things sometimes fell out of sync (time delays, other priorities taking precedence, a myriad of other factors) Sergeant would respond by barking orders and taking numbers. All of this was at first amusing to the other housemates then shifted to being a problem, then became amusing again.

Not sweating the small stuff.
Another housemate was a child of the ’60s who had probably blown out a few brain cells on the various chemical experimentations of that decade. This roommate was well intentioned but usually fell far short in pulling his own around the house. In addition, with both eyesight and hearing not as acute as they once were, Spaceman often simply did not notice things. Dirty dishes were forgotten in the sink, recycling got mixed in with garbage, splattered food got left to bake on the stovetop, and every light in the house would be left on until someone turned them off.

The desire to achieve.
My third housemate was an important person in his own mind who had various overt and subtle ways of making sure everyone knew how busy he was in his professional life and how little time he had for things like courtesy, cooperation, availability, and communication. After all, as he constantly reminded us, he was an MBA and this enabled him to see things—particularly the BIGGER PICTURE—that we, in our ignorance, missed.

We all knew he was around when the microwave door would be left ajar and the timer stopped with a minute or two left on it. He never closed a door behind him, often forgot his clothes mid-stream from washer to dryer, and usually spoke somewhat condescendingly in acronyms, unasked-for advice, and observations that followed an even more twisted logic than Spaceman’s most interior mental processes. MBA was a nice guy who meant well, but ended up letting his ego get in the way of having true human relationships with his housemates.

Compromise and communication.
As a writer, my role in the household was that of observer and liaison wherever needed. Over the year or so we lived together, I managed to find ways to speak the dialects of Sarge, Spaceman, and MBA satisfactorily enough to help facilitate real dialogue on occasion. You can imagine how challenging this usually was, and as long as I never lost my neutrality, also how humorous things became sometimes. Sarge trying to order Spaceman to stop messing up the mess hall? Spaceman trying to explain a dimly understood tax loophole to MBA? MBA trying to be a linguistics expert to Writer? Writer trying to argue both pro and con with Sarge? Wahoo! The fun just never stopped.

Becoming present.
While all of my housemates and I were learning how to relate to each other, a miraculous thing began to happen; rarely at first and hardly noticed, we began to understand each other’s style of interacting and come to agreements that had positive affects on our shared living situation. We began to be less judgmental towards each other and to remain conscious and present when interacting with each other. We were becoming present but didn’t know this at the level of conscious discourse with ourselves and each other.

At some point I began to think about this process of moving from disharmony to harmony within our joint living situation. I realized that strengths of each person were playing into the mix more now than they had at first. Sarge was a person of extreme integrity who was proud of mastering the art of being constant and accountable. Sarge’s every action and desire communicated these traits to us in unspoken ways. As a consequence, we all became more constant and accountable.

Likewise, we learned to appreciate Spaceman’s simple approach to not sweating the small stuff. We grew to admire MBA’s desire to achieve great things in the world. And we found ways to compromise and keep lines of communication open no matter what. As a writer I was thrilled; we had learned each other’s dialects and come to understand and appreciate each other during the course of playing out this real-life script. It seemed like we had reclaimed a bit of our humanity in the process.

The key is presence.
Presence of mind, presence of heart. It is all the same. With our differences intact, we are unable to stay present with each other. With our universality intact, we can celebrate how we mirror each other in so many endlessly fascinating ways. I am Sarge, MBA, and Spaceman—and they are me. Like long forgotten pieces of myself, they have come back home to find a welcome reception and a friendly smile.

Staying present with others is not as hard as we often make it out to be. Staying present brings unimaginable rewards in the form of deeper connections and greater understanding. I no longer grumble at turning off a light or cleaning up a counter. They no longer grumble at my refusal to take sides, because there are no longer sides to take. That’s presence.

About the Author
Timothy Thompson is a professional freelance writer/editor whose work with Dream Manifesto helps illuminate life for online and offline audiences around the world. He is currently working on several writing and editing projects. Visit Thompson InkWorks for information.