I’m linking up with the Five Minute Friday Community today to write on the word of the week as usual.   Because I am working on my poetry books, I won’t be writing today’s post in poetry form (but I did read a poem by Walt Whitman in today’s Poetic Friday Podcast).   Today I’m free flow writing unfiltered and straight from the heart.  The word is OPEN.  When I hear that word, the next word I think of is heart.  I think of both the difficulties we face when having open hearts, and the miracles.  The miracles always trump the difficulties.  I thought I’d write on how the open heart attracts miracles today!

 

 

 

 

Years ago I probably would have said that the open heart attracts drama or hurt.

 

I’m generous of heart, tender and giving of myself by nature.  I feel things deeply.  I’m empathetic.  This is the way God made me.  It is my greatest strength and has also been my weakness at times.  Living life with all your senses turned on and with your heart wide open is pretty risky.  I’ve been hurt many times.  I’ve experienced profound losses (some of them deaths, others abandonment).  I’ve even been turned on and bullied by people I called my closest friends.  Some of you know some of those stories as they’ve showed up in the blog.  Some of these stories can never show up on the blog because of their sensitive nature with the people they involve.  I have even been stalked, threatened and had a switch blade knife pointed at me in a car by a passenger when I was driving.

 

Those hurts caused anxiety, panic, trauma, and many shed tears.  They affected my trust and I put up walls.  I made a safe haven around myself where I could be away from drama. That safe haven did not include many “outsiders”.  And let me tell you-  It WAS safe and there wasn’t drama anymore.  It worked.  It was peaceful.  And my soul needed that to heal at that time.  (The wisdom here is: do what you gotta do for yourself to heal in the moment).

 

What I was going through was like some sort of post traumatic stress.  Somehow all those years of stressful events came to a head one day and I crumbled.  I couldn’t be the Energizer bunny anymore who keeps going and going and going.  At some point that battery wears out.  My formerly shy yet outgoing, had lead roles on stage and sung in choirs, did everything you can think of super social self, took a vacation.  Aside from my boyfriend (now fiance) and my parents, I couldn’t really see anyone and sometimes even the phone was too much.  It was all too anxiety producing.  During that period of my life I learned this-

 

If the open heart runs the risk of getting hurt, the closed heart runs the risk of nothing. Wait, no risk?! That sounds pretty good right?

 

EXCEPT-

It causes dullness and a lack of vibrancy, lack of that ALIVE feeling, bitterness, sadness, loneliness, you name it.  How can we experience God’s best from this place?  The close heart runs the risk of nothing.  If you read that again in the literal sense you can see that you don’t gain much by being closed.

BUT-

Here are where the miracles come in…

 

Remember this phrase:

“The Open Heart Attracts Miracles.”

 

 

If you are wishing to attract more of God’s best in your life, more inspired everyday miracles, you must have an open heart.  If you’ve spoken with me, gotten to know me online, or read my blog , I think you can tell how my story ends.   Little by little, like a tender bud opening in the Spring, I began to unfurl.  I now once again live life with my heart wide open, loving people and being brave as I put my heart on the line every day in all of my interactions with this blog, my businesses, and the people with whom I cross paths.

 

Because God says your light is made to shine and not be hidden.

 

By the grace of God miracles regularly find their way to me.  They have for years now- ever since I began to unfurl.  They can regularly find their way to you too.  You see when you put your whole heart out there and live from the FULLness of you, magic starts to happen.  Sure there will be risks and hurts too.  But as you can see from my experience living the closed off way, is it really a better alternative?  The miracle is always greater then the risk.  It would be a 300 page book if I wrote out my whole journey of unfurling (of which I still continue to do as I bloom a little more each year) and all of the blessings that have occurred.  If you want to read the story on one of the places my re-bloom started, click HERE for “Broken Vessels: a Story of Brokenness and God’s Provision.   It started by reaching out to a stranger I heard about on the other side of the country and by knitting prayer shawls for other hurting people.

 

In living life in full bloom, with my heart wide open, I give away much of myself.  In turn my blessings are abundant.  Everything I have received on my inspired living journey is a direct result of an open heart (putting myself out there).  That everything includes my entire source of income working from home, the businesses I’ve had, friends I’ve met, the house we got, dream opportunities I’ve had come my way, juicy surprises and touching heart encounters.  I will be sharing more of these serendipitous encounters in future posts.

 

I’ve written way beyond the 5 minutes today, but in the words of my fiance, “You’ll have that.”

Are you putting yourself out there?  Is your heart wide open to receiving all that God has for you?  Feel free to share your stories, thoughts, etc. on today’s topic.  I always read and reply to comments.  <3

If you’d like an audio of me talking about today’s topic (& reading a Walt Whitman poem) HERE is today’s podcast (website visitors can click the podcast play button below).

 

 

With an Open Heart, 

Rebekah