prayer

going to vent a bit here... this will be a good vent...

I've been out of the military for about a month now. I don't miss it. I'm not going to try to find another job any time soon.

I remember early years, like when I was 10 or so, when I came to a point where I realized that all my prayers at night were the same: "help to be good, help me to be a good example, help me not to wet the bed..." Those were my concerns back then. I didn't think much on how to make them happen myself or see how God had helped or not in previous days. I sort of just prayed because I was told to. I don't remember what I did when I realized my prayers were repetitive. I don't think I changed my praying habits, I just remember that start of thinking about my prayers. Later on in life, I think it was during my mission, I looked back and could see how my simple prayers were eventually answered.

Before my mission, my mind was all concerned about apocalyptic happenings in the world. I remember being more fascinated in the news than I usually would be. I could watch a news channel for hours. I wanted to know what was going on. More honestly, I wanted to know when the end of the world would happen so I could stop doing things that I felt were foolish. I have always felt most "working" was foolish. Money making seemed to bring more misery than joy. From my perspective, it seems that most people work so they can eventually retire. I'm not lazy. It's not manual labor that I'm opposed to. "By the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat thy bread all the days of thy life." I've said that before and believe in it. I believe work should be productive, doing something that give satisfaction. Building a house to live in, growing food, raising a family. My retirement plan would be to have a big enough family that would be able to take care of me when I can't work any more, but I would continue to do everything I could do to the last breath I take.
I personally believe that was the typical retirement plan for many, many years. Only more recent years have given the world IRAs, or the means to live off of interest in the bank if only one accumulated enough. So the fight began to make everybody rich enough so the amount in the bank would be enough to stop working. I feel like the family idea has been corrupted. Divorce is on the rise. Abortions are becoming popular. And more and more people believe more in being rich than in God. There may be many who still believe in God, but they show by their work that they believe more in money.
So, I for one, take the economic collapse as a good sign. It always was supposed to be a great and dreadful day. A great and dreadful day to cover the earth. It's going to get worse. Wars and rumors of wars to abound. False christs shall announce themselves. And the abomination of desolation (perhaps some weapons of mass destruction being unleashed on the people???) .
This brings me to what I feel is my purpose. To help people get to places of refuge. I've felt that in my soul for longest time and my dreams from young age on have dealt a lot with preparing me for that. Kind of like the underground railroad in the mid 19th century, people will be working to get to places of refuge.

I'm going to run out of money soon (probably a month or so) and probably have to live on what I can carry around with me till God sees fit to put me to work. I don't want to do any other work for money. Maybe God has a different plan for me. I've been trying to prepare myself spiritually for the past month. I've felt guided in my choices so far. I may not have a clear knowing of what I am to do, or how to do it. This may be a test to see if I really will try to live without money. I've never prayed for anything else so strongly in my life.

release negativity

This was really good so I'm sharing it: How to release negativity

My night last night wasn't very good. I have a trainee who needs to know everything and work is getting busier so I don't always have the time to explain everything like he needs. I have come home later and later every day for 2 weeks now and I was quite exasperated by the end of work this morning. Doesn't help my trainee. Doesn't help me. I was dealing with it fairly well until last night. So, the reading on that link was timely.

love, pain, and weakness

I woke up from a dream with an understanding that there are two kinds of weakness.
One that drains you and leaves you with fear.
One that empowers you and leaves you with gratitude.

It's kind of the same way that there are tears of joy and tears of shame.

In the weakness that empowers you, it isn't exactly that you are more powerful, but that you yield to a higher entity to take care of you and protect you. Love seems to fit this kind of empowering.

hypnotherapy and synchronicity among other things in my day today

Went to bed at about 6am this morning.
Got back up at about 9 or 9:30 because I woke up with a sudden flash of an idea for programming.
Got on the computer to work with the programming and Gregory started a chat with me.
We got to talking a bit and set up a hypnotherapy session by phone later on in the evening. He gave me an assignment to write out a paragraph to send to him. Started that assignment right after I finished talking with Gregory.
Got off the computer at about 1130 to go back to bed to sleep some before my appointment.
Couldn't sleep... I tossed and turned and ended up thinking that I'd need to go to the grocery store in the daytime when it was open. So I got back out of bed and headed off to the store.
For some reason the roads were packed today. It's Saturday, but the roads were worse than rush hour traffic. Grocery Store was packed.
I could have felt really frustrated... I didn't have much sleep and I was in crowded situations in the store and on the road. But I didn't let it get to me.

I got back from the store by about 2pm. I went back to bed.
I had this interesting dream... I was in a grocery store. Somehow I knew she was there. I wanted to know if there really was something between us. I wondered if she could feel me too. So I was going to test it out by walking near her and seeing if she would turn my way and feel some sort of recognition. It was such a powerful feeling as I walked near her. And then I woke up to the phone ringing. It was time for my session.

Hypnotherapy is interesting to me. I didn't feel like I was under a spell. It felt more like a fuzzy trance or like deep concentration, without working so hard at it.
I learned that I need to focus more on others if I want to achieve my goals. I forget myself and my pains when I focus on others. It is easier to focus and keep on track when I am concerned for others more than myself.

always something to learn

From a flurry of dreams that I don't remember, this one was pretty interesting.

I was wondering around with some people from work. We were pretty much being vagrants, not really having any purpose in what we were doing, hanging out here and there.
We decided to go to this one shopping area where movies were shown for free. Nearby was a sort of hostel. If you needed a place to stay and had nowhere else to go or money to pay for it, this was the place. There weren't many people using it, so we were pretty much guaranteed to get a bed to sleep on instead of cots or the floor, though, usually multiple people were sleeping on a bed. And it didn't really matter if you knew anybody else or whatnot.

I woke up thinking about how we buy houses and cars where we hoard things and keep them locked up. We protect our things valiantly. Compared to my dream, nobody had anything and the world was all ours. The minute we think we own something and call it "mine" we end up losing the whole world.

This is the line I usually think of when I think of "Consider the Lilies" either the song or the passage. A bird doesn't "own" any spot of land, and it can land anywhere. A seed of grass doesn't consider if a spot is worth growing in. It'll grow in cracks in the middle of the road, or even in gunk that builds up under your car (as I found on an old car I had).

Such a contrast to how I've been acting of late, worrying about whether to get out of the military or not, mostly because of all the junk I "have".

word

Alma 31
5. And now, as the preaching of the word had a great tendency to lead the people to do that which was just--yea, it had had more powerful effect upon the minds of the people than the sword, or anything else, which had happened unto them--therefore Alma thought it was expedient that they should try the virtue of the word of God.

37. And after that they did separate themselves one from another, taking no thought for themselves what they should eat, or what they should drink, or what they should put on.


I have learned something from this... I've gotten into habits of thinking words are too defining and that it's better not to trust so much in what people say. But this puts a bit of a different light on it. Words and actions need to go together. I think I should be better at having more confidence in what I say when I say what I believe and in following it with confident actions that show that I mean what I believe.

prayer

Alma 22
17. And it came to pass that when Aaron had said these words, the king did bow down before the Lord, upon his knees; yea, even he did prostrate himself upon the earth, and cried mightily, saying:
18. O God, Aaron hath told me that there is a God; and if there is a God, and if thou art God, wilt thou make thyself known unto me, and I will give away all my sins to know thee, and that I may be raised from the dead, and be saved at the last day...

of course God doesn't care what words we say or even if we don't say any words at all.
such simple words in this prayer, with all the power to move the universe.