Being vulnerable is an exercise of spiritual strength.
June 5, 2023
It is the God of creation, the God of your lives, the God of all lives, the God of all that exists, the God of all universes that is always joined with each of you on your own pathway. You know of the union of human life and spiritual life, but it is important that you embrace that unity with eagerness, with clarity, and always with love.
Several of you have lost those whom you hold close to the heart recently. It is important for you to know that each is with us, that each is gaining strength, each is surrounded by countless loving souls, loving presences, loving entities that uplift, affirm, and embrace in spirit. Their journeys are filled with light, and there is a joy of spirit that strengthens and soothes and offers a great vision of the power of love. We rejoice in their presence, and they rejoice in the light at all times. They know of your love. They know of your loss. They know of your concerns, your uncertainties, your worries, and all that can bring you strength. We would like to focus our energies upon your souls as we explore what strength truly means.
We often speak of the strength of spirit, the strength of love, the strength provided by outreach, but at its very core, what is it that we speak of when we refer to the strength of spirit, the strength of human life, the strength of spirit life, the strength of faith? A characteristic which is a part of all souls is an ability to reach out. When you are in pain, when you feel discouraged, when you feel losses, when you feel challenges are beyond your capacity to thrive, you have within you a strength which is manifested by reaching out. This reaching out is not necessarily one of trying to affirm the life of others. It is a reaching out to God for help.
The strength that we refer to is an acknowledgment that there is a loving Spirit Center that is truly engaged in your life. You reach out not only to offer love but to receive it. You reach out when you are vulnerable. You reach out when you seek strength that you feel is lacking in your lives. Reaching out is an acknowledgment of God’s presence, but that presence is not located in some single point. Rather, it exists from many sources. When you feel a great loss, you reach out, and God’s help, God’s presence, God’s strength is offered by many. The power of God to grant strength is in truth the power of many to offer that strength.
We assert so often that each of you is part of what God’s presence truly is, and that is because in reaching out for strength, you are embracing all. You are embracing those you know, those you do not know. You are embracing family and friends. You are embracing an acceptance of the unknown from a perspective of peace. Strength, therefore, is not just reaching out to lift others up but is especially powerful when you reach out to be receptive of the love that is God’s love offered by many.
Strength is an active process. It is not just a descriptive word of what one has or what one realizes is needed. You are given strength as you reach out. You give strength as you reach out and embrace. You give strength when you pray on behalf of others and their needs. We often remind you that it is not necessary for the one for whom you pray to know of the strength you are offering, for you reach out in spirit, and that spirit is responded to in love. You reach out, another reaches up, and you meet. You reach out in need, and others reach toward you, and you meet. Strength, therefore, is not necessarily a recognition of presence, of a capacity to affirm others. Strength is then your acknowledgment of needs and your embrace of the arms of those who reach outward to you.
It is not a matter of weakness to be vulnerable. On the contrary, understanding one’s vulnerability is an exercise of spiritual strength. Whether it is because of the need to be strengthened or the desire to offer such strength, the core of spiritual strength is the outreach of love.
So many of you have felt a kind of hollowness caused by loss, but it is in reaching out to embrace the love of others that you are strengthened. At times when you are especially vulnerable, you may occasionally question where God is, but the answer to such probing concerns is that God is everywhere. Open your arms and let the light of others be brought in to illuminate your own paths.
There are never promises in life to which some souls have an easier path than others, for you have no full understanding of what is being sought after by another. We often say that you can never fully understand another any more than you can fully comprehend yourselves. Living a human life has far too many layers to fully unravel. It is not for you to gain a full understanding of self, let alone of others, but what you are asked to be engaged in is a willingness to be vulnerable and an open heart with vision to lovingly engage the vulnerability of others, for you then are an integral part of God’s response to others.
We speak constantly of nonjudgmental love. The purpose of such encounters is to be present in strength-giving as well as strength-receiving. Nonjudgmental love is reaching out and embracing. This subject of strength, therefore, is very different from the common understanding of what is meant by being strong. Strong has nothing to do with what you can offer. Strong, being strong, the reality of strength has everything to do with outreach.
To embrace another means you are in contact with one another. You value another. You cherish another. You affirm the sacredness of another. All of that belongs to reaching outward. In moments of stress and anxiety, accept the fact that God’s strength comes from others, and when you are in a place to be more loving, accept the reality that your strength in serving as a part of God is your nonjudgmental embrace, your loving outreach, your care, your compassion, the prayers you offer for those in special need. Each soul has this inner core of strength. It is a potential that belongs to all, so exercise your capacity to be giving with love.
Some have the capacity to allow themselves to be vulnerable, but there are many who find it difficult to exist on either side of the embrace, on either side of the exercise of strength. When you ask God for strength, you are asking God to allow your arms to be open. God’s presence is indeed everywhere. Goodness and loving kindness are offered from all directions and from all sources.
Embrace those opportunities when strength is offered. Embrace those opportunities when you can serve as the hand of God. Embrace your acknowledgment of God’s presence in all lives and in all circumstances. Embrace the human lives you encounter. Acknowledge the embrace that exists between human life and spirit life.
You embrace our reality, and in so doing you are strengthened. We embrace your reality, and in so doing, we are feeling spiritually fulfilled. It takes both sides to embrace with strength. Your lives are filled with strength as are ours. Welcome the opportunities you have to recognize and affirm that strength of spirit that belongs to all.
We are blessed by your presence. We are blessed by your acknowledgment of God’s reality. You are blessed as you gain in your embrace of our presence always in your lives.
Amen.