Awesome Evening - meeting Marianne Williamson

So, I drove to Houston yesterday.  By myself.  Rented a room at a pretty kick ass hotel.  Found the Unity Church of Houston.  Showed up with my prepaid ticket to awesomeness and grabbed a seat.  I have been looking forward to this for a while.

I first discovered Marianne Williamson on Oprah's Super Soul Sunday.  It was an older rerun but new to me because I had just started watching the show(s).  Marianne has a presence about her, an energy - she seems so gentle, yet strong, so understanding and non condemning.  Her message was one of love.  Listening to her, her words rang so true to me.  God isn't mad at us and just waiting to pounce on us and toss us into hell because we are complete screw ups, He loves us.  All of us. Each and everyone of us f'd up little humans.  She helped me understand that there is Love and there is fear. Both are real, but God is Love.  And I don't need to live in fear - God is on my side.  He wants me to talk to him like a friend that loves me no matter what.

This trip represented several "firsts" for me - I have never gone this far out of my way to meet someone who will never even know who I am (driving to Houston is on the verge of being a PITA to me), only one other time have I stayed alone in a hotel that wasn't work related (mom was in the hospital that time), and I have never set foot inside a Unity Church.  I never gave any of that a second thought, until just now.  Wow. Good for me! I sat between 2 very nice ladies - Toni and April.   Toni and I had several things in common  (husband from Waco, his parents still live there, etc...) but she had never read or listened to any of Marianne's books and knew very little about her - but was friends with one of Marianne's relatives and she was curious.  Toni knew about Marianne and had watched her on her recent appearance of Super Soul Sunday.  We all enjoyed the evening and I believe we got what we came for.  To my surprise, Toni stuck around and took pictures of me talking to Marianne and having her sign a book.

Talking to Marianne, even though it was brief, was awesome for me.  I absolutely love her.  She seems to be exactly what I see on TV and I hear in her audio books.  For about a year and a half now I have started most days with one of her prayers - I have them downloaded on my ipod.  I did suffer from slight "oh my gosh"  "what am I going to say here" stage-fright etc but I did finally say something to the effect of "I want to thank you very much for the incredible influence you have had on my life" to which she said something like "Thank you and I trust you are passing that influence along to others" I told her I was certainly trying to do that.  And I am.

I feel so grateful that I was able to make this trip to Houston and had the opportunity to meet her.  My heart is swollen.