A Late Night Scroll

I've been making an effort to go to bed without scrolling on social media. Some days are easy and other days, well, I am up until 1-2 am after hours of doomscrolling. It is a habit that has led me to spending more days than not looking at reels and posts that either make me laugh, cry or questioning humanity than just falling peacefully to sleep.

I believe that you could learn a lot about someone based off of their explore page. Currently you would find on my explore page suggestions for cooking, Vietnamese culture, and quotes or concepts relating to spirituality (God). You could also find sporadic options on topics relating to tragedies happening in and around our country or whatever new "thing" that was out to get us. It was not long ago that my feed was covered by suggested posts and reels about the Lone star tick and the New World screwworm fly. Whether the suggestions led me to laugh at funny memes or question if I will ever go outside again, being on social media has given me curated access to information that has either encouraged or discouraged me in life beyond the screen.

However, there are some nights where scrolling leads me to exactly where I need to be.

One night I came across a picture of what looked like a drawing of people at different levels of the atmosphere in between earth and what looked like the sun or a source of light.

It drew me in.

It led me to listen to a podcast by Mighty Pursuit titled, I Was Dead For 107 Minutes (They Put Me In A Body Bag). It was an interview with a man name Vinney Tolman who had experienced death in 2013. In the interview, Vinney shares what happened to cause him to die, what it felt like to experience life after death and the lessons and understandings he had from it that impact how he lives his life today.

This is where social media makes it worth it. It connects us to stories and people that help encourage us to become better in some form or fashion. This interview specifically was that for me this week. It illuminated spiritual concepts I have read about in the Bible or experienced myself personally through the journey. It brought clarity and insight to understanding that life exists in both the beauties and tragedies of this world.

One specific idea that he shared related to the concept of God's love and grace. Although he doesn't use those words specifically, how he describes the feelings of what he felt in the afterlife points to it without a doubt.

In the interview, he shares how even the grass feels like "family" and that love, the feeling of being home, was so overwhelmingly present that it couldn't even be contained in the description of what it felt like to experience the light and love through, what I believe he was referencing, was the presence of God.

Below is an excerpt from that part of the interview where Vinney is explaining about trying to translate his experience into a way that others can grasp a concept that was confusing for him.

"This grass is saying like in my consciousness, 'we love you' and I'm like, 'why?' [They] responded, 'because you're you.' I'm like, 'I don't deserve this.' They explain, 'what does that matter? Because you're you, that's why we love you' and I kept it off thinking like what did I do to deserve this kind of love? They're like, 'what are you talking about? It's because it's you' and I just didn't understand that. I had never had a concept like that.

Now since then, I've worked to try to understand that same concept here [on earth].

What what can you do to be worthy of sunlight? What can you do? It's something that's it's a life force it brings life to the entire solar system, but what can we do to be worthy of it? There's nothing you can do earn it. Then what can we do to be worthy of oxygen engage with the sun? What can we do to be worthy of water? We can't; we can't be worthy of any of these things."

Hearing this specific part of the interview immediately pointed to the grace of God for me as a listener. It shows that, just like air and sunlight, the love of God shown through grace is freely given to all who exist. We all don't have to do anything other than exist in order to receive these life-sustaining components. We don't have to earn the air we breath and the sun we feel by how 'good' we can be. It has existed before us and it will exist after us. The power of air and sunlight is not dependent on us; however, we are fully dependent on them.

That is what it is like to experience God. God exists in the air, but he is not bound or limited by it. We experience God in the sunlight rising each morning and in the waters we drink. We experience God through the love we feel in a hug, the laughter of our children, and in the company of friends and family. Love is God and it is all around us - people, places, animals, etc. We don't have to do anything to earn that love - the love of God has existed before us and will exist after us too.

How incredible and humbling that is to understand - that an unconditional love has always existed for us to thrive in the lives we are given. It definitely is a shift in how you view love when compared to the conditional, limited love we experience as humans with other humans. To have access to the direct source of love, which is God, love becomes all encompasses and a essential part of our human existence. We cannot live, let alone thrive, without it.

So the takeaway I am walking away with from this interview...

• You don't have to prove your worth to anyone. You are deeply loved regardless of who you are and what you do

• Love = God. Love exists without us needing to believe in it or not

• We are conduits of that love; everything is. We know love exists through the various expression of it that shows up in the people we meet, the food we eat, and any experiences we have when we are connected and engaging with the world around us (people, animals, nature, etc)