OK, Maria’s discourse on pain and suffering, made me realize that now it’s time to tell my story. I’ll try to make it as brief as possible:

I was born in Finland in a stormy night of September 29th -seventh of my parents’ eleven children. We were very poor but this didn’t bother us children at all, because we had so much fun between us, and our mother and father always made us feel safe and secure. They were always there.
As soon as I was compelled to face the world outside my family, I learned what fear was. On many occasions I was attacked and mocked and ridiculed for what I was, and so I learned, little by little, to hide my true self and the natural joy and self-confidence of my childhood. I was afraid of everything. Most of all, I was afraid of God, of this old angry man sitting on the clouds, judging every single thought and act of mine, as He was presented by the Lutheran religion. I just wanted to run away from Him. But somewhere underneath there was a faith in me. I used to pray a lot to Jesus, but I didn’t seem to get any answers from Him.
When I was 19, I met my future husband in London. He was Italian, so after a couple of years, I moved to Italy. There were signs and people who told me not to go, but then it seemed the only thing I could do, as if there were a path I was destined to follow. The first years in a new country were happy as I was busy in learning new things and in settling down. But when we were finally settled down, with all the daily problems resolved, one morning I just woke up wondering what I’d done: suddenly I realized that I was there, with a completely strange man, in a completely strange country, where nobody knew me, where there was nobody who could share my past and my way of being. I was recognized only as the wife of my husband. I’d completely lost my own identity, with my roots cut off.
I thought that my children would give me a family and a new identity but their birth made me even more isolated, because I had to leave my job to stay at home with them, as I had no one who could take care of them even for one hour. I became deeply depressed, so depressed that even though I thought of dying, I was too depressed to commit suicide.
I’d always been afraid of the moment I’d have to face the death of someone I loved, and when this happened and my father died, I touched the bottom. I was totally immersed in a darkness from which I could see no way out.
One day I was sitting in the park with my little son playing near me, and I was nothing else but a hard black stone closed on itself, when a man riding a bicycle passed by. He kept looking at me with a smile and some admiration in his eyes. And it was as if a beam of light made its way into my heart and I was struck by the thought that if this man could see me, then I still existed!
From this moment on a new life started for me. I went to a psychologist, but it didn’t last long, because I realized that she didn’t understand at all what I was feeling. Then one day I felt compelled to buy a spiritual book entitled: ‘Knowing yourself to love God.’ That was the beginning of a long list of spiritual books and seminars and workshops and yoga… anything that could seem spiritual. In a few months time I took the 1st and 2nd level of Reiki. And when my mother died, I was strong enough to comfort my brothers and sisters in spite of my own sorrow.
I intensified my spiritual search and wanted to communicate with the other realms and be a channel for beautiful messages of love and hope. I got tied up with a lady who was seemingly receiving true messages from her guides and one day I started receiving messages myself. For one week I felt I was in Heaven: I waited for God to come and take me to His ‘castle’ because I was to be His wife and give birth to the new saviour, after Jesus. I was so in love with Him, and He would have resolved all my earthly problems. I was supposed to announce the birth of the new saviour in church, at the wedding of my niece, but when I told this to my elder sister (mother of the spouse), she got very angry and said that I was not to do anything of the sort and that I was not to spoil their wedding. It was as if I received a big punch in my stomach. Suddenly I was terrorized and the - until then - loving voice turned into many horrible voices that started torturing me. They said that I was actually the wife of the devil, of all the demons, and that they would never leave me alone and I would live ever after with them in the deepest hell. To make it brief, for one week I was faced with all my fears and my deep beliefs, one by one, by these voices that would go on nagging night and day. At the end, they became very mean and rude, when they realized I would get free of them.
I was saved by my sister (mother of the spouse) who to this day says she doesn’t know who was guiding her, but she knew exactly what to do and where to go, even though we were in a completely strange town. I met many wonderful people who blessed me without making any questions.
It was at the home of the local priest, in a reunion of people singing hymns (whom I normally considered fanatic religious people), with a most beautiful voice singing through my mouth the hymns I didn’t know, that I felt a peace explode inside me like I’d never known before, nor afterwards, and I heard a voice say, ‘Now, you leave this daughter of God alone!’ The voices disappeared at once but then they came back again, because they said I’d invited them back. Little by little they became more feeble, until one night, when I was too tired to listen to them, I said, ‘OK, I’ll be the wife of God, the spouse of Jesus, whatever you want, but I don’t want to listen to you anymore’. I felt a warm kiss on my brow and never heard the voices again.
Only much later did I realize that it was my ego that wanted to make itself beautiful in the eyes of people, to be admired and LOVED, and that I’d made contact with some astral levels.
I became much more selective about my spirituality and started finally to use my discernment. I also discovered Internet, which I’d abhorred until then, and for days and days I sat in front of my computer before I found the courage to offer my translations to a spiritual website. I didn’t think I was good enough. Suddenly a completely new path opened in front of me. I was finally doing something on my own, without depending on other people. Every time I started feeling that there had to be something more than the website I was translating for, a new website came up and someone offered to do the translations for the old site. I kept growing along with the messages I translated, and miracles started to happen in my life.
When my daughter had a car accident and her boyfriend died, I was strong enough to hold a higher vision for everyone involved. I could feel God’s love pouring through my heart to lift my daughter and all the other people at the funeral. In this occasion there was another ‘coincidence’ as I discovered Suzy Ward’s books which tell about life after death. They are transmitted by Suzy’s son Matthew, who died in a car accident – and my daughter’s boyfriend was called Matteo. So, I felt this was a sign for me to translate these books in Italian.
When my father-in-law, whom I loved very much, died two years ago (on my birthday!), I could feel joy and peace for his freedom. I was almost annoyed with all the other people crying, as I realized that when we lose a loved one, we actually cry for ourselves and not for the person who’s gone away. I know that we must live out the pain and the sorrow when they are fresh but then we must let go, so that we and our loved ones can go on with our lives here on Earth or in Heaven.
I still keep asking God why He doesn’t give me precise instructions on how to proceed in my life, as I only want to do His Will. But the answer I get is that I (we) promised to make it by myself (by ourselves) to emerge from darkness to light. So, I know I am doing this for God, for myself and for all of us. There is help available but we must ask, ask and ask, as no one in Heaven will go against our free will. It’s a God’s law and sometimes I feel they are even too obedient to it in Heaven.
This is not an easy path but as God told me recently through Gloria: “All the while you are coming closer to your Self. The ride is often not smooth, and yet you ride it out.”
:( :? :shock: :x :D
It was not easy for me to write this story. It seems too long for the forum, and yet I’ve told only a little part; there’s so much more to it that I could write a book. But I hope that at least one thing is clear: it is possible to see a higher vision in the midst of pain.
Paula
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Love is the Answer.