(I’m posting this, my personal story, in two parts, as it is rather long.)
Part 1
In the interest of transparency, let’s talk about the nitty-gritty. Let’s talk about the money sent in to the Hope Chest and some of how it gets spent in support of a team member. This is the story of a public servant, the story of a lover madly in love with the notion of making a difference.
It’s my story.
Since I’ve been a team member for 4 years now, let’s talk about me. Nothing about this story is secret, by the way. All of it has been publicly available at all times. Allow me to repeat it here.
I started out with this platform just like everyone else did, in a search on the internet based on my longing for connection.
The connection I was longing for was one so deep and so meaningful it would bring me out of my dream of being isolated and helpless to do anything about what I care about in this world. It would bring me home to family, to purpose, in a way so powerful that even a hardhead like me couldn’t fail to appreciate it.
To prevent this story from becoming a book, allow me to tell it in brief form.
I was reading the blog for a short time, when Steve put out a call to people to realize he was only human and couldn’t reply by email to all who were asking for this.
I emailed “Contact Us” and offered to do email exchanges with folks who just wanted to talk to reduce the pressure he was feeling.
In classic Steve fashion, he invited me to take part in the discussion forum, and from there it was a very short time until he asked me to take a leadership role there.
I accepted this role and have served as co-owner and lead moderator since that time, which was somewhere around the end of 2010.
Let me back up a minute, and explain how I could devote full time (and more than full time) hours to such a task. I’ve been blessed by a husband who worked full time as a truck driver.
Since we traveled together and lived in his work truck, we were living very simply. Since I don’t drive a truck, this left me with plenty of time on my hands during the long hours daily of rolling up and down the road.
Eleven hours a day of driving translates into about 15 or 16 hours a day devoted to working. I was bored and without anything to give me a feeling of worth or productivity. An unlimited wireless internet connection also made this work possible.
I was deliriously happy to find a place to serve! Imagine! A way to actually do something about something I care about!! This, is itself, presented to me as a miracle and not a minor one either.
From the last few months of 2010, through to October 2013, we lived in this way, while I stood as guardian and a loving spaceholder in the forum. This task was one that I did, with love and devotion, for 12+ hours a day every day of the year.
Particularly during the last part of the years in 2011 and in 2012, the email load to do this was often to the tune of hundreds of emails each day.
My inbox overflowed and I plowed through them anyway. In the process, the payoffs for this were mighty. I found the love of community. I found many of my sisters and brothers were out there longing for connection just like me. The Divine Abundance of the love in our community revealed itself to me, and my love for my service grew.
Honestly, there’s no amount of money that could pay me to do this enormous amount of work, or to devote this amount of my life energy to anything. There’s no price tag on what I do for love, nor, apparently, is there any part of me that has enough sense to know if I’m giving too much. Be that as it may, this is the truth of the matter.
It wasn’t until the end of 2012 that I ever received a penny from the Hope Chest. The entire reason I even did so then was based on the fact that everyone insisted I needed to be in physical attendance for the Sedona 2012 Scenario conference. It would be the first time that I had a chance to meet with those I serve, and those I’d been working in alignment with for the previous year or so.
The $2,500 I received to make that appearance possible was sent in to the Hope Chest on my behalf, and I was astounded with the generosity of readers and forum members. Again, the Divine Abundance of the community revealed itself.
I was literally breathless the whole trip out there, and incredulous too. And this was only the beginning of this process of having my heart burst open. I felt like the Grinch who had his heart grow three times its size!
That trip deeply grounded me into the realization of the importance of my service. The love I received there was immense, and as impossible as it seemed before, I got direct evidence of the fact that the love and devotion I give matters. It matters to people! Their love poured out to me and I found my heart actually had physical pain trying to allow it all in.
Thank you to Taka-Chi, who preformed a healing for me with his digerido, blasting me straight in the heart with it and allowing it to expand mightily during the part of the conference that preceded Linda Dillon’s channelings.
Thank you to Linda as well. There were massive amounts of downloads encoded in the words she channeled that day which have taken a long time to integrate. I honor her service and how this has enhanced my own ability to expand into mine.
(Continued in Part 2.)