Why do we so often fill the unknown with the worst thing we can imagine?

Centuries ago, mapmakers populated unexplored spaces with sea monsters, dragons, and other dangers. Rev. Cindy Shellum explores how we do the same thing with the unmapped territory of our own lives.

A career change, health diagnosis, relationship transition, or uncertain future can become a blank space where fear quickly writes, “Here there be monsters.” But an imagined outcome is not yet our reality.

This message invites us to remember the unknowns we have already survived, take the next available step, seek guidance when we need it, and recognize that a larger comfort zone makes more of life available to us.

The blank spaces are not necessarily threatening. They may be inviting us to create, explore, and discover what comes next.

Where your old map once said, “Here there be monsters,” you can write: Here is God. Here is possibility. Here is infinite potential.

What if the obstacle is not blocking your path—but becoming the path? In this special message and musical experience, Rev. Cindy Shellum and singer-songwriter Bob Sima explore fear, shadow, change, and the possibilities hidden within life’s darkest seasons. Through teaching, story, prayer, and original music, they invite us to listen to fear, examine the roots beneath our struggles, and trust that everything we go through can grow us. Like the lotus rising from the mud, transformation can begin in the places we would rather avoid. Learn more at https://www.gocsl.org/

What could begin to grow if you released what is no longer serving you?

In this guided visualization you’ll journey through a peaceful forest to the banks of a flowing stream. There, you’ll place painful words, regrets, difficult emotions, and limiting experiences into a bag—and watch as the water carries them away.

With that weight released, you’ll enter a rich and peaceful garden where new thoughts appear as colorful flowers. Each bloom represents a new possibility you are ready to nurture within your life.

You do not have to keep carrying everything that has happened. Release what no longer serves you, make room for something new, and plant the thoughts you want to see grow.