Something that seems to be returning to me as I very slowly recover from the grief and trauma (it’s complicated) of these past few years is a sense of self determination. I had not realized it was gone in the first place.
What I did know is that for a long time it was very hard for me to talk about the future without feeling really freaked out, or even angry. It was hard for me to let go of anything, or make any changes, even though I kept having to do just that.
I felt like my inner infrastructure had been bombed out and I was not at all sure it would ever really be rebuilt. It’s not that I thought God could not do this. I was just not sure whether He wanted to.
Now that’s just plain silly.
Actually, He was waiting for me to remember a few things. “You are not dead,” Jesus says, “…only sleeping.” (see Lk. 8:52)
Time to wake up.
Pentecost is coming.
The grace of Pentecost is not just remembering the glorious Descent of the Holy Spirit and the birth of the Church. It also is a reality of my beautiful Christian life, which is itself a pure, sweet gift to me.
Pentecost is real and the Holy Spirit is coming to renew me, renew my broken life, my broken sense of reality. (Sorry if I am freaking you out. I’ve been through a lot lately.)
If you are just getting through the day, or you feel like your life is over or ruined, I hope this helps you, too:
God does not create our hearts to be empty wastes, but to be lived in. (see Isaiah 45:18)
Why in the world would God create us and send His Son into the world for us only to have any of us be destroyed and stay that way? That makes no sense, and can’t be true.
“I came that you may have life, and have it to the full.” (see Jn. 10:10b)
We are each co-creators with God, and even though we always want to be guided and conformed to God’s will in our lives, this is actually a creative process in which we work alongside with God with a combination of His inspiration, His help, and our own volition and creativity He gave us.
One of the many things my beloved second late husband, Bob, and I learned as we journeyed through our fight for his life against Brain Cancer, is the beauty and strength there is in thinking of each day as an entire life time in miniature. Each day begins with the re-birth of waking up, and the gentle death of falling asleep in our Father’s arms.
We found a lot of peace, courage, empowerment, manageable self determination, and a new way to stay in the present, living fully, in this idea of life being represented in each day we lived.
I thought about how to apply this idea in the new life I realized God wants to build with me.
I can make a life one day at a time; one day, my life’s microcosm.
I have to decide what is important to God and me, what ingredients we want in each day, what ornaments we want to decorate my life with, what design we are trying to trace.
Then we have to start somewhere.
Right now, we want to start with renewing my prayer life, which has altered along with the rest of me.
What else do we want?
We want peace. We want peace in every day.
What else? Love. We want me to live love every day.
That’s a good beginning.
So I am setting off , one day at a time, with a bit of holy self determination, to adorn my days with prayer, with peace, with love; to rebuild my life with the coming of the Holy Spirit, the giver of Life.
“…rebuild the temple, that I may be pleased with it and be glorified,’ says the LORD.” Haggai 1:8b
