I have a story to tell. I struggle with telling it, not wanting to become yet another loud voice screaming into an echo chamber of ideas. But it needs to be told and if you will listen I hope it will be a story of restoration and freedom to you.
I am a stay at home mom of 4 boys. My husband and I have been married for 12 years. We have fought long and hard for a marriage that means something. He is my greatest gift.
A little over three years ago my body began to fall apart. I had to have 3 surgeries—one of them a disk replacement in my neck. I developed chronic migraines and the suffering that came was relentless. It didn’t gently stretch but rather ripped apart the fabric of my soul. It didn’t make it a little bigger to carry a bit more virtue. No, it decimated it, leaving in its place a black hole that swallowed all that my soul knew to be true. One year ago this September I looked at my husband and said, "I don't believe in God anymore. I don't know how I can. He has abandoned me in my darkest hours. I cannot believe a loving God would ‘cause this for His glory,’ because if he did, he has a self-esteem problem and I don't want to be a part of it."
This was the message I had inherited growing up: God caused suffering so we could show others how steadfast in our faith we were and then people would respond, "Wow! That's amazing! God is so good!" WHAT??!? I abandoned my post as a Christian and as devastating as the break up was, I didn't know how to stay in that place of belief anymore.
This suffering left only questions—questions of self, the Divine, and purpose. Questions if left unanswered leave my soul empty, without hope, permitting my soul to transmit its pain to others (cf. Richard Rohr) and causing a trail of wreckage in its wake.
Only suffering can break that which the soul never intended to give up.
All of this ‘dark night of the soul’ forced stillness so I would choose to truly address the suffering and pain, instead of shoving it away or over-medicating it to dull the pain—both physical and emotional—when it tried to surface. My physical body and mind began to slow to stillness; some because of the nature of my illness, but some because I was tired of fighting the pain. My entire being began to sit Shiva (the formal period of mourning in the Jewish tradition) and just hold the pain. There became no agenda, just a quiet stillness that acknowledged the depth of the suffering and sat with it. In this stillness, my soul slowly became aware of the “Great Mystery”—the Healing Presence of Love that had always been present. My soul just wasn’t aware of it. This Presence began to grow deep within my soul, resurrecting in it a new identity—one that had been restored not just to love a bit more, but rather to be the place where Love abides—the Healing Love named Jesus.
Our capacity to be resurrected by Love is because of the great outpouring of God’s Love on the cross. The cross arrests our soul because it is the place where deepest pain and deepest love meet. It is the cornerstone, the crux, the foundation, the exact place where Mystery transforms pain into love, brokenness into wholeness, and wounds into waves of grace. It is the resounding voice of God that screams, “You have never been forsaken! I have NEVER left you! I am ever with you and abide IN you! I LOVE YOU! And while all is not right at present, all has been made right and all will manifest its full healing one day. My Grace has no end. My Mercy guaranteed.”
Let me be clear: I’m not fully healed physically but my heart, soul and mind will never be the same and therefore my body will never be the same either. It has become the vessel by which I am being made more and more into the Likeness I was created to be.
With these words from the Promise—the very Presence of Love—my soul was resurrected and transformed. It was given new life, life which is connected to its Source.
When we let this Love come in, our whole being becomes attached to God, the Vine (John 15), and we find that God’s love flows into us and we flow back into God. “As we give ourselves into one another, the vine gives life and coherence to the branch while the branch makes visible what the vine is.” (Wisdom Jesus, Cynthia Bourgeault, p. 31) Meaning, we are so connected to Love that it gives meaning to our lives and that meaning reveals the existence of Love. Our resurrected selves are now themselves a presence of hope, healing and love in a world that lives as though it has been forsaken. Our ability to love others becomes the starting block for our ripple of change to begin. The world doesn’t have to be as it is. Your corner of the world doesn’t have to be forever bound up in suffering. Because of Jesus there is now tangible Love that can and desires to bring true healing. Love fights for those who have no voice. Love restores the dignity to every life that has been told it doesn’t matter.
This is a great mystery, the resurrected soul by the mercy of Love because of devastating suffering. It begs us ask the question, “If God can bring new life from the soul’s darkest night…what then can this new life do connected to the never ending Love of God?”
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