Ballistic Missile threat to Hawaii

Posted by admin in Blog (Weekly), Blogs

Jan
29

By the grace of God, I’ve been able to embrace and cultivate an attitude of GRATITUDE for what “shows up” in my life, especially this week when I fell on my face on our family trip to Hana and the emergency alert we received in Hawaii.

I’m able to practice gratitude because I believe that everything happens for a reason and for my highest good. It is not to punish me or to make me suffer, but for my soul to grow and receive love, for love is all there is. Gratitude is a CHOICE. It’s important that I don’t do a “spiritual bypass” by not allowing myself to feel my feelings. When I am disappointed, angry, sad or overwhelmed when something happens in my life, I need to feel all of my feelings before I can change my perspective and practice gratitude. I need to give myself all the time I need to process what is going on, knowing there is no right or wrong way of doing it.

I am grateful for this gift of gratitude and for the many opportunities to practice it. When I practice gratitude, accepting “what is” surrender, and trust, I am aligned with the Spirit within and will experience peace beyond understanding.

By now, because of social media, most of you are aware of what happened in Hawaii this weekend. This is the alert we received of our phones:

EMERGENCY ALERT: BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT INBOUND TO HAWAII. SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL.

It is under investigation as some reports are saying it actually was a drill while others are saying it was a MISTAKE and that the wrong button was pushed. It took 38 minutes after the original text was sent out for us to get notification that it wasn’t true. According to media reports, Hawaiians panicked in the streets, crying and screaming for dear life. I didn’t know this but some were told that there was 15 minutes before the missile attacked. A woman got under her mattress calling family and saying good-bye while another man gathered his family and went into a sewer.

My friend, Kati, had just picked up Herbie and I to go to breakfast when we received the alert on my phone. We immediately turned around and came back to our home. Larry had not heard the message on his phone and was shocked like the rest of us. My daughter, Mary, had gone to the farmers market (which was 40 minutes away) to volunteer when she received the message on her phone. She called panicked and said, I will be right home.” I called a couple of girlfriends and invited them to come to be with us so they wouldn’t be alone. There was nothing we could do, but be there for one another and trust Love would take care of us.

I’m not sure if I was in denial and didn’t believe this alert or if I blocked my feelings, because I didn’t panic and didn’t think this was the end of my life. I didn’t call my kids to say good-bye. As I processed my experience and my feelings around what happened, I asked myself, “Can we really ever be prepared for something like this?” We don’t know what’s going to happen next in our lives, do we? We only have the present moment and that is NOW. I can choose love or I can choose fear. One minute we are safe and peaceful and the next moment our lives appear to be in danger.

When I live in an attitude of gratitude and know there is only love and love will take care of me no matter what the circumstances are, there is no room for fear or panic. What good would it have done for me to be in the energy of fear and panic?

My heart is full of gratitude when I woke up this morning with my husband and the sun shining and my family safe and sound.

On a much smaller scale than a ballistic missile threat, I had another opportunity to practice gratitude, rather than to complain and feel like a victim. As I shared in the previous blog, we planned a trip to Hana for 2 days. We had a couple of hours to kill before we checked into our cabin so we went to the state park for a picnic and a walk along the ocean path. As we were walking, my sandal got caught on a small lava rock and I fell flat on my face and cracked my head. You can imagine how my kids felt when they heard me scream and turned around to see their mother flat on her face.

They immediately helped me up to see what damage had been done as I hobbled back to the car, with their help. Of course, I was shaking as my knee, elbow and ankle were bleeding and I was in pain. Larry was concerned that I may have a concussion since I hit my head pretty hard.

I could have been really bummed out that I couldn’t enjoy the next day’s excursions with my family, but had to rest and keep my leg up. Instead, I allowed Mary and Tim to take care of me and receive their love. They truly were a gift to me and I so appreciated their love and concern. As we know, it’s not easy to receive when we like to DO. Another gift was spending time with Herbie as we played games and cuddled together.

I am very grateful that I didn’t break any bones and that I didn’t have a concussion or permanent damage to my face or nose. Perhaps my body knew what was important and that I needed to rest and receive love. I don’t know why things happen, but I trust it is for my highest good and everything is in perfect and divine timing.