I had a beautiful experience a couple of weeks ago—one that left me in a quiet state of joy, even though I was in significant pain. At the end of my daily yoga practice, we did a meditation I had never done before. It felt as if joy itself surrounded me. Like a gentle breeze, it filled me up. Tears poured down my face, and the joy was so thick and palpable that my two touch-me-not cats came into the room. One gave that soft “brrrrt” greeting sound cats use when they’re feeling affectionate. The other—my rebellious teenage cat who is usually bent on destroying our house—began circling me again and again, rubbing against me until he finally plopped down beside me, purring.
The joyful state lasted all day.
Twenty years ago, my husband and I were going through an extremely challenging period. External forces seemed bent on destroying us (and that is not an exaggeration). We asked someone at our church for a comfort blessing. My husband’s blessing was exactly what you’d expect—words that soothed and steadied his heart. When it was my turn, I didn’t get the comfort I asked for. Instead, I was told—repeatedly—that I would be healed from “all of [my] physical problems” if I learned everything I could about the plan of salvation.
The only issue was: I wasn’t sick or in pain. I had no physical problems. I was confused and, honestly, upset. I had asked for comfort but instead received something that felt misplaced and unsettling.
Despite my frustration, I pressed on. And when the physical pain began a couple of months later, I finally took the blessing to heart. I realized I had been forewarned. This was a spiritual trial, and I was being asked not to get consumed by the temporal circumstances of my life and my physical issues but to focus on eternal, spiritual matters.
These past twenty years have been a convoluted journey. So much of it didn’t make sense at the time. I would receive promptings to do things that seemed unrelated to what I was physically experiencing—or to the “plan of salvation” I thought I was supposed to be learning about. What I didn’t understand then was that I was being given experiences that gave me the vocabulary, if you will, to recognize the next prompting. Step by step. One seemingly unrelated thing after another. Year after year.
As a Christian, many of the places I was led might look like I was straying. Many times, I wondered, Am I apostatizing? Am I being led astray? The cognitive dissonance was intense.
But woven through all of it was an unmistakable thread: love. I’ve come to see how deeply God loves all His children, and how He has always spoken to them—even if they don’t call it God or understand it through a Judeo-Christian lens. I’ve seen how many spiritual paths across the world are divinely inspired, each offering unique ways to overcome the natural man. For me, many Asian practices have been most helpful, especially given my trauma and history.
To some, this might sound like heresy, but to me it’s a broader and more complete understanding of the plan of salvation. A way has been prepared for all of us to return to our Heavenly Father. I do follow an established religion, and I do believe my church is the only true church. That might seem contradictory to everything I just said, but something a past president of our church taught helps reconcile it. I’m paraphrasing, but he said that truth and goodness exist throughout the world, and that the Church wasn’t meant to replace that truth—it was meant to restore what had been lost. He invited people to take whatever truth and goodness they already had and let the Church add to it.
When I began writing this post, it was the day after that joyful experience. What I meant to write then is now lost to me, because the joy was quickly followed by another phase. The last two weeks have been emotionally and physically difficult. Old things have risen to the surface because I’m in the middle of another layer of cleansing. I’m releasing the residue in my body, mind, and spirit so that I can become more of who I’m actually meant to be. The fleeting state of joy has been replaced with something even more valuable: a deeper, steadier equanimity.
I’ve learned that a spiritual path will always feel convoluted. It will lead you to places that seem contradictory, even impossible, until you look back and see the thread connecting it all.
We often call the plan of salvation the “plan of happiness”—and for a long time, that phrase confused me. My life has been anything but simple or easy. But the moment of joy I felt in that meditation made something clear: happiness isn’t the absence of pain or contradiction. It’s the quiet confirmation that, even in the middle of the mess, God is still guiding us toward Him.
That joy wasn’t random. It felt like a small, merciful validation that I haven’t been wandering aimlessly all these years. That the winding path, the unexpected teachers, the detours that made no sense—all of it has been part of His design to help me become who I was always meant to be.
And if your spiritual path feels confusing or contradictory, I hope my experience offers some reassurance. You are not failing. You are not lost. Sometimes God teaches us in ways that don’t resemble the straight, tidy narrative we imagined. Sometimes the path looks nothing like what we expected—until one moment of joy breaks through and reminds us that we’re still on holy ground.
Trust those moments of joy, even if they are fleeting. Trust the thread that pulls you forward.
And trust that God knows exactly how to lead you home.
Leave a Reply