I grew up in a Presbyterian church.  My mother, my siblings (three older brothers and a younger sister) and I went to church regularly.  I went to Sunday School where I memorized lots of bible verses and competed in races to find the bible verses the fastest.  I was very active in the youth program.  Over the years our family received a great deal of emotional support from the church.  The church was an important community to me.

Yet many of the messages from the pulpit were authoritarian and fear-based – we are all sinners and unworthy. I remember trying to believe these messages, but they did not resonate with me.

While my childhood did not provide the spiritual experiences I longed for, my life experiences did.  I’ve always had a yearning (almost a physical energy or force, a feeling of being compelled) for saying yes to opportunities for spiritual growth. For over 60 years that longing has manifested in me attending many workshops, intensive retreats, and a six-year program in healing and self-transformation that has provided both deep personal and spiritual growth.

I bought this necklace when I was 18 with this inscription:

“Reach for the stars, the universe is unfolding as it should.”

I didn’t understand it like I do now, but it spoke to me at a very deep level, and I wore that necklace for quite a long time.  Now I see that at one level reaching for the stars means loving myself unconditionally and believing that anything is possible and trusting that all will be well.

The most intense, difficult, and challenging part of my personal and spiritual life has been moving from being invisible to being visible. Fear about almost everything kept me in an invisible cage. Messages of being not worthy, not smart enough, unimportant, insignificant, etc. totally shaped my behavior.  I can now see how keeping myself locked into being invisible to myself and to others was a protection as a child in the environment I grew up in.   I do not need this protection anymore.

This journey over 60 plus years has many chapters.  Each experience helped me see a way forward, gave me courage to step a little more into myself.  Over the years I have learned about myself and have done deep work to let go of shame and guilt and to embrace that I am a Divine Being.  In the past year for the first time,  I have experienced being present and unafraid.  I have embraced the joy of being who I am and being seen in this world.  This transformation has been miraculous and truly wonderful.

I believe that reaching for the stars is what kept me seeking and saying yes to opportunities that provided the wisdom and growth and the guidance that I needed. Many times during my life an opportunity for a spiritual experience would come to me and the inner longing part would propelled me even demand me to say yes even when my head said no.  I truly felt guided.  For me this is the universe unfolding as it should.

For a long time, I had this quote on my refrigerator: “And the day came when the risk it took to remain tight inside the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”

This quote was very meaningful in my many years’ journey from being invisible to myself – not knowing who I am, or what I want and literally hiding from people and the world.  Being invisible was remaining tight inside that bud, being afraid to speak my truth, always deferring to others who were more important than I was and deeply believing that I did not matter to anyone in this world.

An intense spiritual experience occurred when I was at a retreat and was given the assignment to call someone who I was totally disconnected with.  Immediately I thought of my older brother who was a very sarcastic, nasty person to me and most other people. I avoided him at all costs and never wanted to engage with him at any level.   I really disliked him.  With great fear and anxiety, I called him early Sunday morning.  He answered the phone, and I told him what my assignment was and said to him “Bob, I want our relationship to be different.”   I was waiting and expecting something sarcastic or demeaning from him. There was a long pause and he said, “I do, too.”  That opened the door for long conversations about who we each were and what led to our separation.  It also softened him a bit and at our next family gathering my other siblings noticed a change in him.  Taking this risk became a miracle for me, my brother, and my family.  This experience has been an anchor throughout my life.  It has given me courage to speak when I am afraid.

I had another intense experience in my 50’s that catapulted my spiritual awareness and my connection to God.  I was on my way to a friend’s home in New Jersey, when I left a side road and took the ramp onto a major highway.  As I reached the place where the ramp entered the highway, I saw in front of me a semitruck parked right off the road.  At the same time there was another semi coming very fast in the right-hand lane.  There was no place for me to go.  At that moment of awareness, I entered an altered state of consciousness.  I was acutely aware that I was in my car with absolutely no fear and completely surrounded by white light.  And I was floating.

I came back to this world on the other side of the parked semi.  I sat for a long time in my car with a deep sense of peace and acutely aware of the immense power and presence of God and feeling loved and cared for.  I knew I had experienced a miracle.  I remember thinking, OK, God you have saved my life for a reason.  Now what?  My experience on the highway surrounded in pure white light and feeling God’s presence and love have given me a knowing that I don’t fully understand  – but I do not question.  I do know that God is real.  Reading about and listening to near death experiences continues to confirm this deep knowing.

My knowing that God is, has given me a peace about my physical passing.  I look forward to my transition when I will experience that eternal world of white light and love again.

There have been many times throughout my life when my spiritual presence was not visible and accessible to me. Regrettably, along the way, I made many hurtful decisions to people that I cared about and loved. When I look at these painful times in my life, what I notice is that I am acting from a place of deep fear and distrust.  I feel alone, very detached, and closed down.  I’m unable to see the other person and my impact on that person. During these times I did not and do not know how to access the loving part of me, the part where I am guided and protected.  So, one part of my spiritual life is to recognize when I am in this place of fear and learn how not to close down and to trust that speaking my truth will not annihilate me.  To learn to shift from fear to love.  This is a continuing process for me.

I have deep gratitude for each experience that awakens me and deepens me spiritually.

I know that my journey is to practice these truths and to forgive myself when I don’t.

Thank you,
Donna Hutchinson