I’ve captured many insights and personal revelations over the years, most of which I had no idea were such important stepping stones within the Timeline of my own SOULworks until after the fact. The most pivotal perhaps being the inner timeline required to navigate, write, narrate, and finally surrender to my own life path and HOMECOMING. The events highlighted within my Personal Timeline are perhaps some of the more significant milestone moments that helped shape my entire career as an author and Messenger of Change. Some of these original posts were included in my books as part of a life lesson or teaching. Some were simple journal entries captured online as I searched for inner clarity and insights along the way. Others are perhaps best described as a ‘My Move’ section while navigating this co-creative chessboard we call life with as much faith, inner courage, and outer strength as I could humanly muster. Either way, charting the archives to my authentic SOULworks has been one hell of a ride.

Today I find myself within another ‘My Move’ section eclipsed yet again within this divine appointment we call life. Discovering, forgiving, finding peace with, and finally moving forward beyond my individual and our collective past, while still finding the compassion within myself to honor my entire SOULworks has been a very long process. Some days there are aspects of our story we are ready to release. Other times there are aspects we are meant to hold onto with all our heart and soul. And most assuredly there are even those days when both versions of our story become so entangled that they inevitably collide, reaching a predestined moment in time while charting a path to our new beginnings.

You may be wondering why I would resurface to highlight a seemingly insignificant chapter within my HOMECOMING anthology while taking the focus away from my biblical entanglement once and for all. Well as it turns out, I promised to. And besides, I have no intention of this transformational teaching getting lost within this generation or any other for that matter.

Grace is an ambiguous yet ambitious term. To become disentangled from the biblical era, sometimes we have to resubmerge ourselves into the original storyline in order to find and reclaim what was once lost before we can even begin to be found. Other times we have to dive straight into old structures and belief systems to remove the blinders well before we can even begin to genuinely see or be seen for that matter. For myself, I have no doubt that my own mountain of fears and insecurities regarding my life-long journey towards activating, evolving, and mastering my own SOULworks gracefully (or not so gracefully) released the very moment I first and finally believed. And just to be clear, I’m not talking about believing in some age-old, outdated story once told. I’m talking about finding, seeing, and believing in the entire scope to my authentic SOULworks, safely embedded within the archives of my soul just waiting to be found. In that regard, it is the actual process of inner and outer transformation (both of the personal and global variety) that undeniably holds the greatest potential to truly echo our divine and infinite amazing grace. Thanks be.

With all my love and gratitude,

Lauren Heistad

Photo credits from Left to Right:

Photo taken by Barbara Quinney along the South Saskatchewan River on September 24, 2018 shortly after the arrival of the second print run to my second book Evolving your SOULworks.

Photo taken by the Davidson Redeemer Luther Church Sunday School program as preparation for and participation within its traditional church Christmas pageant circa October 1982.