Likely the first of many of my meanderings as I navigate life as a 37 year old. Grief is a topic and emotion that I wrestle with most days, other days grief transforms into anger and resentment. Some days I feel like grief is just part of who I am, the heavy shoulder bag, resting on me as I participate in life willingly. What a blessing it is to feel, to feel anything. I'll likely write about the many little miracles I experience on the daily, and this is just one of them.
I had a thought today on January 13th. I wondered if I should document all the wild and wondrous things happening in my life as the days progress. This week for example, is prayer and fasting week at the church. I’ve fasted plenty times, and prayed silently in my room, often out of frustration for where my life was at but never did I pray with intention. I came in on Sunday, January 11th with a clear mind, we met for the first time in Guelph at an extension of our church with others who showed up to celebrate the week of prayer and fasting. Is celebrate even a word I can use to describe this? I don’t know but it seems to fit considering everyone seems to worship in very loud, boisterous ways and to someone like me who is quiet, it's like a personal hell. I often find myself trying to hide in the shadows and afraid of singing out loud, afraid of garnering attention, mostly afraid of sounding like a prepubescent boy.
When I go to prayer nights randomly, I play this game I saw in a movie called The Last Rodeo with Neal McDonough and Mykelti Williamson. There’s this scene where the two gentlemen are sitting on a plane traveling to the rodeo and Mykelti, playing the character of Charlie Williams turns to the actor Neal and fingers through his Bible, randomly inserting his finger into a page and reading a passage. Turns out, in the film, the passage was exactly what Neals character Joe Wainright needed to hear. So, I thought to myself "that’s cool, I wonder if that actually works" and so, like the green, new Christian I am, I stuck my nail into my Bible in my lap at prayer night while everyone was singing.
I had gone into prayer night with no intentions other than to just be present. No phone, no distractions, no lists of worry that often plague me, just pure, uninterrupted presence with myself and the Lord. I wanted Him to show up and tell me what I’m supposed to do, tell me anything that can just point me in the right direction because you see, I have this need to try and organize and control things. Well, this particular Sunday, I let it all go at the feet of Jesus or as the old me would say, let it go at the door. My finger slipped into the crevice I created and I flipped my Bible open to where my nail poked in, and there it was, clear as highlighter blue would allow. Isaiah 53: 4-6 says :
“ Surely he has borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows;
yet we esteemed him stricken,
smitten by God, and afflicted.
But he was pierced for our transgressions;
he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that
brought us peace,
and with his wounds we are healed.
I highlighted this passage many times when reading about grief and had reread the highlighted bits so many times before.
In writing this I also just realized the part that I was missing the most, “ and with his wounds we are healed". I was missing the part that I am healed already. I just needed to be ready to see it.
I attached a photo of my current bible. The line is still missing to be highlighted because I now know, I need to ruminate on the healed bits--I'm still working on that part. I think grief is resolved at no particular pace but your own, and what you're willing to accept about it....
More meanderings to come...
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