Spiritual Awakening

Hello everyone!  My name is Leslie Gaddy and this is my first blog.  I decided to start this blog in order to reach like-minded people and to share my spiritual stories, experiences and views.  I grew up in a Southern Baptist home and held on to Christian views/beliefs for most of my life until about seven years ago when I experienced, what I call, a spiritual awakening.  This spiritual awakening happened not long after my father passed away.  Both my older and younger sister also experienced this awakening at the same time.  I can not attest to the reason they had this experience, but only to my own.  I can tell you, though, that it was a much better experience for me not to have to go through this alone.  Without the support and input from my sisters I might have kept it all to myself and possibly not grown or matured spiritually.

I had always secretly questioned some of the dogma associated with Christianity, but never dared speak of it.  I held on to the belief that if you committed a sin, then you were doomed for hell.  I lived in fear, carried feelings of guilt, believed in a jealous, angry God, and rather than thinking for myself,  I chose to trust the church wholeheartedly and without question.  It would be hypocritical and unfair for me to say that the Christian views/beliefs are wrong.  I am not here to downplay nor to discredit anyone's religious views/beliefs.  I am simply speaking for myself and my own personal experiences, views and beliefs and bringing light how and why they changed.  

My awakening began, like I said, not long after my father passed away.  I was torn and confused about how to feel.  I was extremely sad that he died and that he suffered for weeks prior to his death.  I felt guilty for my feeling, for lack of better words, relieved that he would be out of my life for good.  Our relationship was strained at best.  I had a difficult childhood and some difficult times during my adulthood due to his cruelty and abusiveness, so his being gone would eliminate the stress of having him in my life.  So basically, I was happy that he would not be able to cause discontent in my life anymore, but on the other hand, he was still my father and I did love him, so I felt very sad and at times very depressed.

Within just a day or two of his passing, we (my siblings and I) could all feel his presence.  The TV would turn on and off by itself, things would move, water would run, balls of light would bounce off the pictures on the walls and we constantly heard unexplained noises and even voices.  Even though none of us saw him, we could all feel that it was him.  It felt as if he were physically there.  It was strange and bizarre and unexplainable.   This all took place at his apartment while we were making funeral arrangements and quickly sorting through his things.  (We only had two days to clean out his stuff and make arrangements, so there were some moments that things got hectic.) During this process my younger sister shared a book by Sylvia Browne called The Other Side and Back.  I found her book to be intriguing.  She had an explanation for who we are, why we are here, what her truth about life and living is, plus much more.  This book made a huge impact on me.  There were so many things that she explained that made more sense to me than what I had always believed.  It made more sense to me than Christianity.  I can honestly say that there were some things that I didn't necessarily "buy into", but most of it made complete sense to me and I became curious.  This became the beginning of my spiritual awakening and my life has not been the same since.

This intent of my blog is to share my spiritual journey with you.  I will post my progress, share ideas, books articles and look forward to any comments, experiences or interaction you may want to share as well.

Goodbye for now!
Leslie :)