Empty Promises
When Hopes and Expectations Do Not Match Reality
When I was a little girl, my parents, who were devoted Christians, chose not to participate in the Santa myth with me. I was told it was a popular story, which mostly was created to steal the holiday from the birth of Jesus. Their reasoning was that when I realized the Santa story was not true, I may question other things they had told me, such as the Jesus story.
If we don’t live in a remote cave somewhere, completely out of touch with pop culture, we all know some version of the story of Jesus’ birth. Here is the one I was told, with some thoughts to ponder about its validity.
An Angel appears to a teenage girl and tells her she is going to give birth, without any help from a man. This child is the son of God, and will save the world from sin. She ends up marrying a much older man, who took pity on her and didn’t want her humiliated at the reality of being an unwed teen mom. On Christmas Eve, they found themselves in a strange town, where they had gone to pay their taxes. No one had any room in any of the hotels in town, so someone took pity on them and offered them a night in a stable with a bunch of animals. Apparently no one heard her screams and expletives as she gave birth to a son. Or perhaps, she was so blessed by God that childbirth was not painful, or messy. Meanwhile, local shepherds were drawn to the stable by the appearance of Angels, and respected men from other countries had been following a star for perhaps months, but they all arrived in town on the same night to witness the birth, perhaps drawn by the screams of childbirth, and guidance from the stars. (oh! Apparently they believed in some form of astrology!) I wonder if the Angels also provided assistance to Mary as she single-handedly cleaned herself and the baby up so they were presentable for company.
Yeah, that is a lot more believable than an old man with a long beard flying through the air in a sleigh pulled by reindeer who can fly, distributing gifts to every “good” child in the world.
I guess we all understand that the story we are told is the “cleaned-up” version, and that Jesus was probably not even born in December. It is debated by historians whether or not Jesus existed at all, but I am not here to debate that question. I communicate with a consciousness who calls himself Jesus, so I assume that at least parts of the story are true.
Whether or not we believe this story, the promise was that this child would save us from ourselves, and from the darkness we created. Yes, some believe that we did not create the darkness, but that God had sent the darkness here as punishment, but that is a story for another day.
It has been over two thousand years since this story may or may not have happened exactly as described. It seems we are still struggling as a human species.
We are still killing each other over differences in beliefs.
Obviously, a large portion of our country believes this story, and even bases their entire identity on it.
I was one of those people until I hit my mid-thirties.
I was convinced that any problems I may have could be fixed if I prayed long enough and hard enough. Jesus would somehow swoop down and fix my continual financial struggles, my dysfunctional marriage, and reward me for all the self-sacrificing I was doing.
One day I woke up and realized nothing was going to change unless I did it myself.
And that is when Jesus and I parted ways.
At least temporarily.
Nowadays, Jesus and I have worked out our differences. I realized that maybe I was avoiding personal responsibility for my flawed choices, and his lack of ability to snap his fingers and fix everything was possibly a gift in self-empowerment.
I still question many of the stories about him, as we all should!
One of the ways a lot of myths are presented as truth is the explanation of what faith really is.
One of the definitions of faith is trust in something that has no evidence to back it up.
We are taught that if we lack faith, or do things forbidden this holy book, we will find ourselves out of favor with this Creator called God. Then, we may find bad things happening to us.
Sounds like a good way to control large groups of people to me.
Am I saying I don’t believe in miracles?
NO, not at all!
However, it is extremely important to be choosy in what we believe, and that we have some sort of evidence to back up what is being fed to us.
Today I want to address empty promises.
So many times we swallow things we are led to believe by people we trust, and somewhere down the line, we discover that our trust was unfounded.
I thought I would include the Christmas story here, because it is Christmas, but I also want to talk about how sometimes we build our lives on beliefs that lack substance, and when we find out that something we believed was flawed, we suddenly find ourselves questioning everything we ever believed.
We may put our trust in people who are supposed to love us, such as parents, lovers, and other significant relationships. We may put our trust in various leaders, who convince us of certain realities that in truth, do not exist. We may put our trust in religious or spiritual leaders, and their self-proclaimed hotline to heaven. When we find out the truth, it seems that the world under us begins to shake and we question the very foundation of our lives.
Sometimes our faith is so strong in flawed beliefs, that, even when presented with evidence to the contrary of our deeply-held beliefs, we create some story to explain the discrepancies.
Right now in human history, I believe that we are being called to at least consider alternate perspectives. We are going through a time of what I call an expansion of consciousness, or a spiritual awakening.
Sometimes these spiritual awakenings happen suddenly, unexpectedly, and without warning. When this happens, it can be quite unsettling.
For me, around twenty-five years ago, I began receiving messages from a consciousness that I called the Holy Spirit telling me things that did not fit with my religious upbringing. It both shattered my world and freed me simultaneously.
I did not just buy the truth without question at first. But information I was being told seemed to be backed up by evidence. Things I was told were going to happen, happened. I began to question everything. I began to notice how certain people were using certain doctrines to control me and other people into blindly following whatever they were feeding us.
When I suggested the flaws in blind faith, and the importance of teaching people to think for themselves, I was promptly discarded as an infidel.
As I write this, I completely understand my own personal paradox.
I am someone who communicates with the spirit world, delivers messages to folks from their Angels, Guides, deceased loved ones, and sometimes their pets. I channel healing energy to people, animals, and the world. I use cards and other forms of divination to give probable outcomes for life dilemmas and choices. How can I encourage people to think for themselves at the same time I am delivering these messages? Do I have proof?
In my last blog, I talked about connecting with Elvis and healing some unresolved grief he had over his life. How can I claim this actually happened?
I would offer some observations from my years of doing this work.
When communicating with spirits, I always ask for some sort of evidence that can be verified. As I mentioned in my last blog post, Elvis showed me pigs living at Graceland, which I was able to verify.
My second observation is that when I channel healing energy, people report feeling better! If they are in an emotional place to heal, their lives get better! I cannot guarantee that they will completely heal physical illnesses, but often that is the case. Their sense of well-being improves. They feel lighter and more aligned with a sense of joy.
In no way do I promise any sort of guaranteed outcome from what I do.
I have never promised that if you give me money, you will be blessed financially or be healed from any illnesses.
I always stress that if you make different choices than what I am seeing you are currently doing, your future may turn out differently than what I see as a probable outcome.
You are always in charge of your own life. Yes, there are some factors that you cannot change or control. But you are always responsible for how you react or respond to life’s difficulties or happenings.
If you have been promised certain things, not by God or those who claim to represent God, but by people, governments, or other institutions, and you have found those promises lacking substance, it may be time to reexamine what you believe and who you trust.
You are not required to blindly trust anyone, including me!
Anyone who is speaking into your life should display character and integrity. Look at the whole picture, not just what people say or what the news says, or what people who have some sort of fame or established position of power say.
You don’t have to believe something just because a lot of people believe it.
You don’t have to buy into everything you are told, or everything you read.
Today, it may be time to begin questioning long-held or perhaps recently acquired beliefs or trust in someone, or something, that seems to be claiming unverified facts or promising things they cannot substantiate.
No Higher Power ever takes away personal responsibility.
Kindness and integrity matter.
Your way of thinking may or may not be right for someone else.
Anytime we or someone we trust are more concerned with self-interest than kindness or the well-being of others, we can legitimately question their motives.
Anytime someone claims they are exempt from fault or seem to be benefitting in some way from the misfortune of others, we can question their motives.
We are responsible for our own well-being. However, we are not required to put our own well-being permanently on the back burner in order to be servant to someone else or a greater cause.
Any acts of kindness we do must be done from a place of love, not obligation, fear, or the desire for self-interest.
If you are doing some good deed and it does not feel good to you, you are allowed to stop doing it.
Starting today, let’s decide to begin to take responsibility for our own well-being. Let’s stop expecting someone to come rescue us, or feel like we are a victim of any kind.
Yes, sometimes things happen that are not desired, and there is nothing we can do to change those things. We grieve when we need to, we take time to process our pain, and we take action if it is called for.
Let’s begin to raise our awareness to a higher degree of personal responsibility, while still trusting that the Universe, God, or whatever you call your Higher Power is friendly, loving, and kind, but will not rescue you from the messes you have gotten yourself into.
You can always change your mind or your path at any time.
I hope you take some time to contemplate what things you believe or do not believe, why you believe them, and how those beliefs have shaped your life.
If you are interested in my work as a psychic, medium, and spiritual communicator and healer, you can find all about me here!
If you enjoyed this post, feel free to comment, share, subscribe, etc. If you did not enjoy this post, which may be a bit controversial, that is okay too! But hateful comments will not be tolerated. I understand my perspective is not everyone’s cup of tea.