Albert Camus once said: “I would rather live my life as if there is a God and die to find out there isn’t, than live my life as if there isn’t and die to find out there is.”

I used to live as if there wasn’t a God purely because I had decided there couldn’t be one. I had spent my childhood and early teens waiting for God to speak to me; send me some sort of signal to let me know he was there. When He never did, that for me, was proof that He couldn’t exist so I gave up on him.

But looking back, God was speaking to me, sending me signals and letting me know every day that he was with me. The magic of God is all around us: in the beauty of nature, the laughter of a child, in the warmth of an embrace, in the chance meeting with a stranger, or in a seemingly random act or series of events.

So if God is in everything and all around, how come I never realised it? Was I just rubbish at listening, watching and seeing the signs? Surely not!

I hadn’t realised it because I had been sold the idea that God was some bearded old man sitting up in the sky, and that if he chose me He would boom down from upon high or send an angel as a messenger to tell me He loved me; that He knew I was a good girl and that one day I would be swept up to Heaven to be with Him.

Obviously when this didn’t eventuate I was crushed; I gave up on God and what I knew in my heart to be true… that there had to be a God.

What I didn’t know then was that the version of God I had been sold by religion didn’t exist and was a cunning trick that made me feel alone, unworthy of God’s love and separate to Him. That God was something out there, transcendent and out of reach; that I couldn’t have been good or special enough for God to notice me; that I must have done something wrong and was being punished for my sins and that’s why He never appeared to me, spoke to me, or sent me a vision.

As a little girl I would often get a feeling in my chest and body like a warmth radiating out of my heart, with tingles going up and down my spine and across my back – like the soft caress of a warm breeze had gone across my skin. A feeling of calm and absolute joy would accompany these sensations; in these moments I knew God. I could feel He was with me, inside of me, in my heart. I knew I was part of God and His love was part of me.

How terrible to have given up on that because of the deceitful teachings we are indoctrinated with as children.

I attended a workshop for the first time with Serge Benhayon in 2004 during which I was introduced to the Gentle Breath Meditation™.

After only three gentle breaths my heart burst open and that feeling in my chest and body that I’d had as a girl returned so strongly and so familiarly that I couldn’t deny it. I sat and wept, shedding tears for what I had missed, what I had always known and craved for so long – the missing link that was always there.

God had never left me or given up on me… I had. I had stopped being aware of His magic, and how I felt inside. I had “forgotten” how to connect to that feeling and in so doing shut down and denied the most beautiful part of me. The part that is from God, the part that is Love.

I no longer wait for God to come and talk to me or send me a vision. He does that all the time anyway, not with a voice or an angel but with nature, people, a warm embrace and by being in my heart. Now when I want a ‘chat’ with God I close my eyes and breathe gently, reconnecting to that feeling from my childhood and letting my heart open to my own love – the love that is God.

by Dr Rachel Hall, Holistic Dentist, Kenmore Brisbane