When we last spoke, I had decided to surrender myself to the change that I felt was coming. I didn’t know what it was or how it would manifest itself, but I knew it was coming; I felt it bearing down on me like a freight train rattling down the tracks at full speed. And I was ready for it. I knew it was time. Here is what happened:

There is a person in my life whom I have become friends with under some fairly unusual circumstances. Despite some initial hesitation on both sides, we have felt continually drawn to speak to each other and our conversations have been nothing less than life-altering. We have found that the “unusual circumstances” that brought us into each other’s lives have given us the unique ability to offer healing in places where we both have some very deep wounds. During one of our many talks, it was suggested that I read the book A Return to Love by Marianne Williamson. I had heard of it before (I had even purchased it and stashed it on one of my highest bookshelves) but I had never gotten around to reading it. I had enough clarity to realize that perhaps this book had been suggested to me for a reason, so that night I pulled it off my shelf and decided to give it a try. With the sound of the freight train pounding in my ears, I figured I should say a quick prayer before I began.

“Hey there, God,” I said. “I don’t know who you are or if you even really care, but I wanted to let you know that I am listening. I have a feeling this book is going to change some things for me, and I wanted to make it clear that I’m paying attention. I’m ready to heal and I’m ready to change. Bring it on.”

Of course, that night was the beginning of the dramatic shift that has taken place inside my heart.

Although that book was an undeniable influence, the book itself isn’t what has changed me. What happened the night I said that prayer is that finally, finally I opened my heart enough to allow God to move on in and pitch his tent. I had been so shut down and paralyzed by fear, that no one- least of all God- was getting past these giant walls I had built up. I felt like a little broken wind-up toy. My paint was all rubbed off, springs were sticking out everywhere, and my wind-up key had fallen off long ago. I was useless, stuck, and very alone. Of course I was alone. I had become adept at avoiding intimacy on every level. I made sure no one would get close enough to see what a mess I had become. Boys and girls, this is a lonely, lonely way to live. What I want is connection. I crave relationships and people and, above all else, I crave love. There was barely any of those things in my life! Books don’t love you back. Cats love you as long as they know you’ll be feeding them soon. Kids love you all the time, but their preferred method of showing their love is through whining and the destruction of personal property. My cup was just plain empty. So I invited God in to see if maybe he could fill it up. And now I feel like the Grinch whose heart grew three sizes that day. I have been flooded with so much peace and awareness of the love that surrounds me, the love that I had been shutting out. I can see how God has used people in my life to save me and love me time and time again, and even more amazingly I can see how he has used me.

Not everything I have done on this earth has been great and altruistic. Probably none of it has. But there are times when I feel God’s love working through me so fully that my blood turns electric and my skin virtually crackles with the power of it all. I remember, for instance, turning sixteen. I was in rehab, rooming with three other girls from various parts of the country. We were all far from home, away from our families and the lives we knew. All four of us were so young, and so very scared. Nighttime was rough. We weren’t allowed to speak or leave our beds after the lights had been turned off, and each night found one or more of the four of us crying quietly into our pillows. One night, for no reason at all, I decided to sing to them. It became a ritual after that, the three of them laying there quietly while I sang until I knew the last one had fallen asleep. If I didn’t feel like doing it, they begged me to until I gave in. I sang them everything, from lullabies to show tunes, and never once did they make fun of my sad, reedy little voice. They needed the comfort of my songs and our ritual as much as I needed to give it to them. It’s a little embarrassing, really, to say that I felt God on those nights. But I did. I felt God loving those girls through my voice, soothing them in the midst of such a frightening situation. And the woman who patrolled our hallway every evening, who normally stuck her head in the door with sharp rebukes when she heard so much as a whisper coming from our beds, never once told me to stop singing.

There is a famous quote from George Bernard Shaw that says, “I want to be thoroughly used up when I die. For the harder I work the more I live.” This rings a bell of truth deep within my heart. For me, peace comes through loving others. For me, fulfillment and joy come through being an instrument of goodness and light in this world. No matter how big or how small my actions are, as long as I am letting God love the world through me, then I am right where I am supposed to be. This change in me has come through the realization that if I allow myself to be open to love, every day will be full of little miracles. And that, boys and girls, is such a lovely, lovely way to live.