Love to all from Montana

[jeanne]

Oh, my goodness, David!!! What a story you have to tell! I think it could be published! Thanks for sharing this and I do look forward to the next chapter....please keep it coming!

Shortly after I read all the Padgett messages and started my journey on the Divine Path, I was actually guided to connect with the Mormon Church in Vancouver! Looking back on this experience, I realize it was just what I needed at the time as I got myself involved in all kinds of psychedelic stuff in the 60's! I actually received scholarships to BYU and lived in Provo, Utah to complete a bachelor's degree in Education and Social Sciences. BYU was a complete contrast to the experiences I had while attending U.B.C. in the 60's where some of my proffs were draft dodgers from the states; other passed out chocolate / hashish brownies to their students; we protested the war in Viet Nam; closed down the Canadian / U.S. border by protesting nuclear bomb testing in Alaska --for the first time since the War of 1812!! What a time it was! I loved every minute of it!

At BYU every class began with a prayer; most of my teachers were incredible and there was so much "goodness" there. I met some of my closest friends in life: other "non Mormons" there on scholarships from Hawaii! We became fast friends - which led to Al and I visiting Hawaii no less than 9 times in years following!

How wonderful - and surprising -- that both your parents were open to your attending both churches! Wow!

Thanks again for sharing and please do let us know what happened next! Love Jeanne

[dmreed2]

I hope I didn’t sound to negative in my last post. Thanks for the uplifting words Al. It is the deep love in the messages and ring of truth that I felt while reading about Divine Love, the spirit life and much more that kept me hungry for more. I felt like I could finally stop searching and a great deal of peace and comfort was at last mine. As I believe most of us all felt. Thank you for sharing such and interesting part of your life Jeanne. My experiences with the Mormon Church were mostly good. There was a lot of love shared and a deep commitment to living a good moral lifestyle. I also felt this love from most of the people I met in the Catholic Church. I look back at these events as important in directing me to where I am now, sharing and enjoying the messages of Divine Love. Had these painful experiences not happened, I very likely would be on a different spiritual path today and completely unaware of the Padgett messages and those that followed. I know God didn’t cause these events to happen but rather permitted them to unfold so that I would search for Him and His gift of Divine Love. I recently read a message that our spiritual paths are as varied and beautiful as there are snowflakes on earth. And I look forward to reading about others spiritual journeys as well. A thought recently occurred to me that every moment of our lives is part of this spiritual journey no matter how seemingly mundane. Maybe my frayed shoelace this week was part of this journey though I don’t understand how. Could I be over reaching here?

Love to all my fellow Divine Love family,
David

[DennisT]

Oh my, David.

I can certainly relate to your Catholic experience, as I often refer to myself as a "recovering Roman Catholic!"
Having gone through Catholic elementary school then an all boys, Catholic high school certainly leaves its marks. (And that's not counting the ones from Sister Mary's ruler!)

I hope you will feel as I did when I came here just a few months ago, and I see that you read Al's last post and you'll know why we are here. It is abundtantly apparent to anyone visiting this forum that the Love emanates from many points from within this venue. No scornful looks, no sneering, not even a single sharp rap across the knuckles! Just Love, and plenty of it.

Thank you for sharing a bit of your story, and I look forward to hearing more.

Love and blessings,
Dennis

[dmreed2]

I’m thankful I never experience the ruler across the knuckles. Your right Dennis, the love here is wonderfully strong. After rereading what I wrote about the path to God is as varied as there are snowflakes I think it would have been more accurate for me to say that the path to the knowledge of our Fathers Love is as varied and beautiful as each snowflake is unique and beautiful. And I would venture to guess that each journey in Divine Love is equally different and special.

After deciding not to follow either faith of my parents I put my search on the backburner, so to say and concentrated on what I felt society wanted me to do. After all, the promise of a fruitful and rich life was assured if I just went along with the program. I left high school unsure of what to do and there were the military recruiters eager to plan out the next few years of my life. I than joined the Navy and followed in line with many other young grads to what was suppose to lead to fufliment and bliss. Well, as you can guess that wasn’t the case and with each passing year I grew more and more at odds with the military. Initially it was the way they treated the lower rank and file but later I began to question the whole notion of War and its role in humanity. I was becoming a passivist and as each year ticked by I could feel my soul leading me away from this illusion that war is sometimes the answer to society’s sicknesses. The day I finally left was one of the happiest times of my life. My soul had been liberated. And today I can say with utter confidence that War has no place in God’s World. Never has, Never will. I am also eternally grateful to Father for not ever allowing me to be placed in a position that I might have been forced to act in violence. It didn’t go unnoticed by me that I spent most of my time either in a classroom or training. Despite all the years I was there, I was never in any dangers situation. The gift of free will is guided and I can certainly attest to that. Shortly after leaving the Navy my search for God intensified, in great part to my recognition that He had been guiding me all along, despite my folly decisions. I began to read about the different religions of the world, not in great detail, but enough to have a basic understanding. But in them all, they didn’t satisfy my curiosity. I then began to read spiritual books, I was particularly interested in Near Death Experiences and was also watching T.V. shows like John Edwards who is a medium. Than it occurred to me that God or his angels might be communicating over the internet through messages. I thought, why not, so I began to do searches for messages online which eventually lead me to Geoff’s New Birth website. The richness, detail and love I felt from these messages told me I was very near to finding what I had been searching for. This Divine Love thing was completely new to me and at first I didn’t give it much attention but instead devoured the messages on descriptions of the afterlife. But, in time I kept returning to these messages and occasionally those delivered through Padgett. I really feel blessed and extremely grateful to God, His angels and to the Divine Love community here on earth who have supported one another by discussing and sharing and praying for each other whether it’s for earthly blessings or the Blessing of God.

Thank you for allowing me to share a piece of my journey,

Love to all
David

[jeanne]

Hey, David!
Your story gets more and more interesting with each paragraph! What you have written really deserves publishing - war is not the answer! Love is the answer. We used to participate in Peace Marches in Vancouver - at the same time thousands and thousands of people were marching around the world. The sign I made said "Make Love - Not War"! Peace Begins with Me!
What rich life experience you have had....
Ok...you got me hooked now.....what next?
Driving a truck a night, watching stars??
I'm all ears!
With love - and thanks Jeanne

[Zack]

Thanks David for sharing a piece of your journey... an interesting read. I have occasionally wondered about something related to what you were going through, that is how being in the military affects one's spirituality. Anyway I am so glad that have found the Divine Love and hope for spiritual abundance your way... Love, your brother, Zack

[dmreed2]

It was people like you Jeanne that helped guide me away from the military. Mostly from the examples they lived. Zack, I would say that others who leave the military will often give rational explanations but I venture to guess that It has a very large part do to with their souls desires and they have trouble recognizing it as so, consequently they give rational explanations that will leave them frustrated and often in pain. This is why I am so greatful to our Father, He had demonstrated to me in clear ways that He was guiding my soul and so when I left, I felt liberation rather than turmoil.
Unfortunately, I don’t have a whole lot more to add about my spiritual journey so I think a book would just consist of a few sheets of paper. As Al said, my journey is beginning. What I can add however, is that after being lead to the messages of Divine Love I would turn my gaze elsewhere and get interested in other activities of life but I would return to the messages with a renewed interest. Every time I returned to nourish my soul I would want to stay longer and as time went on my interest in the distractions of life became a little less. This went on for over 10 years and its been in the last few months or so that I’ve committed myself more to prayer. One thing that did happen, and kind of just naturally, is that I stopped planning so much and was living more day to day, week by week. This has created a life that from outward appearance would seem undirected and unsatisfying. But for me its been just the opposite. I feel so much more at peace and have never done without. My needs have always been met, so little that they may be, because my need for God has grown. I recently read a message and I’ll paraphrase it for you:

Don’t plan, Live, Love, pray for God’s Love, and let myself enjoy the spiritual journey.

All of these things I recognize I need to work much harder at, especially praying for God’s Love and giving love. This divine love sanctuary has helped me to recognize how important it is to pray. Something I have been neglecting to do. Thank you for the clear example that all of my Divine Love brothers and sisters are giving.

I guess I can sum up my spiritual journey in this way:

When my life was so well planned, I felt so confused.
Now that my life is so confusing, everything is going as planned.

All my love,
David

[jeanne]

Hi David,
I love your writing, and your sentiments, especially: "When my life was so well planned, I felt so confused.
Now that my life is so confusing, everything is going as planned." What an oxymoron.

I struggle with trying to find a balance in my life....while Al tends to "go with the flow"-- he works alone; I lead a large organization with layers of connected program teams, competent leaders and approximately 100 staff and volunteers providing a broad range of services to homeless people, battered women, pregnant and parenting teenagers, immigrants and refugees. I've devoted the last 30 years of my life to building this organization. We feed about 300 children a day and it's a constant struggle to find funding - from various sources. I have been accused of being a "work-a-holic", but in the last year or so I've been struggling to develop capable leaders at all levels of the organization for when I "pass the torch". I can't see any other way to manage and lead an organization without planning!! It's practically all I do now....back to back meetings day and evening, with community groups, politicians, business, government, my board, management team and leadership team. I couldn't fit everything in (visiting my 90 year old mother, our son in prison, our granddaughter, praying and praying and praying....). It's all scheduled and all planned with very little unplanned time! I yearn for "down time", for "free time".....but I also take my responsibilities very seriously. Al seems to know how to pace himself and enjoys a more balanced life - I tend to be overcommitted and often overwhelmed. I really envy this new way of being that you have created for yourself - - it gives me hope!

I really do try to keep prayerful at all times....I am so grateful for help from God and the Angels who seem to be with me constantly. For without Divine Intervention there is no way I could do what I do! I am humbled by my co-workers who give endlessly without need for recognition....they just keep giving. I am humbled by the families we serve....so many are in terrible pain and live in poverty. They have overcome unspeakable traumas in their lives that most of us, thank heaven, have not suffered.

Thanks again for your post! Love Jeanne

[dmreed2]

Jeanne, Wow, what a full and rich life your living, and giving so much love. Your commitment to the poor and needed is inspiring. I believe God knows us better than we know ourselves and He will task us with showing love based on our capabilities. You’re certainly capable of so much that he has given you so much responsibility to guide, nurture and care for his children. I bet mother Theresa felt overwhelmed at times and needed to plan to accomplish all that she could give. For myself, I know I don’t handle stress very well, so if I tried to do what you’re doing I would likely utterly fail. I do better at committing myself to few opportunities of love at a time. This fits well in my comfort zone. I feel thought that I need to put more effort into this and to recognize when God is directing me to opportunities to show love. I trust He won’t give me more than I can handle. With prayer I believe I will see these opportunities more clearly. I think that what was meant in the message by not planning, was that when challenges come into my life that causes me to worry and fret, rather than spending hours or days trying to figure out how to solve these problems, I should give it to prayer. Lay the worry at God’s feet and let Him handle it. I know that I can only see the issue from a narrow perspective and since he can see it from all directions, He will disassemble the problem into manageable pieces, that I with my limited capabilities can then face without worry. I have had some problems that worried me that after praying about them they simple resolved themselves. Quite a humbling experience. This message also had meaning for me because I was at times spending a great deal of energy planning my future, and when I thought I had it figured out something would happened to derail my plans. After experiencing this several times in my life, I finally said or rather felt, I don’t know what my future holds, Father give me direction. Since then my life has been quite uncertain and at times fear of what lay ahead clouds my thoughts. But this soon diminishes as I witness God’s hand as he leads me about and stomps out my worries. My trust in Him grows and I feel closer, than it wanes and I feel distant. I am working on trusting Him more but it’s not always so easy especially with the challenges of life. Often self inflicted I might add.

Jeanne, you’re an inspiration and you give God’s love to all those who need it and your planning has made that possible. To each our journeys are wonderfully different but in the end we will all be together.

Love to all,
David

[AlFike]

You have to know David, that Jeanne is a consumate planner. Without this gift, she would not be able to do what she does. She is very much in the material world in this respect and is always trying to balance this with her spiritual life. I, on the other hand, am more like yourself. I beseach the Father for guidance and it comes. It even comes for Jeanne's organization and for many other aspects of our lives. It's important to know, however, that we all have our blind spots and weaknesses, but nothing that more Divine Love cannot fix coupled with the inevitable hard knocks of life. Life gives us many learning opportunities and being human, we make misteps on the journey but nothing is wasted as we learn from these mistakes.
The fine line that needs to be walked between our actions and following our guidance is subtle and challenging as we discern between the two and gain wisdom from this process. Life is never black and white, cut and dried, it has the potential to make many twists and turns as we stagger along trying to find our way like a blind man in a room. Prayer, of course, keeps us on track and in tune with our guidance. I must say that all the brilliant things that have happened in my 60 years on this planet have been the result of acting on my guidance and many of the disasters have been from ignoring these prompts. I don't mean to imply that every day is guided and directed, far from it, but those important descisions have all had input from the Divine source and my own soul's signal that it is right. This blessing of being plugged in gives us all a leg up as I'm sure we have been guided away from disater more than once in our lives. God knows what my life would have turned out like if I had turned away from the Divine Path. I shudder to think .
Soul discernment , soul wisdom and soul perceptions are the blessings that we all need to pray for because as these gifts grow within as we pray for the Love, they will show us the way through the dark forrest of life into the lighted glade of a peaceful existance. God cannot control everything but we can be guided away from the darker elements and harsher experiences and lead us to a more harmonious existance.
Many potentials , possibilities and suprises await as we put our trust and faith in the hands of our Loving God. This endless journey is only a few steps on. We are just babies in this spiritual quest trying to open our eyes and see the world of God's creation more clearly. May the scales fall from our collective vision and may we share what we perceive with many. The world needs what we have. I hope we will all race forward so that our love and wisdom will bring greater light to this world. So much awaits and there is little time to spare.
Keep praying for the Love David, and all who are here. God needs your commitment to this so that we can all act in concert with the Father's will and plan to heal our brothers and sisters.Bless you dear brother for sharing as you have because it ellicits a response from all the dear souls who read your honest story and struggles. Part of loving is in the bonding that comes with allowing one's self to share our stories and our truths with others. The corresponding part is our accepting and honouring this gift . Thank you David for your gift of sharing yourself here. May God's Love find a constant inflowing into your soul dear brother. Your friend and brother........Al