SWB......

St. Ignatius wants me to look for the desolation and the consolation.  And I can't find any.

What I find is opportunity after opportunity....and great joy in the gifts that they give me.

~~~~~

The sister sent me a photo of a file she'd decorated.  She's started to see a therapist (I'm grateful for that, given the loss and trauma she's had to contend with in the past year) and she was given a plain, brown file of information for her reading pleasure.  

Being who she IS, she slapped some pretties on it, doodled and coloured--and made it her own.  When she went back to the therapist, file in hand-- the therapist was amused, pleased even.....and sent her home with a creative project as 'homework'.

Create-- and write about her feelings in the past year.

She was ecstatic--an excuse to make pretties and draw (she's the artist) and doodle and just.....create!  She had idea after idea.....enthusiasm--and she told me to not help her because this was one she had to do "on her own".  She was joyful for the undertaking, wanting to put life to all she'd had to walk through.  I laughed at her -- the direct polar opposite of me who kicks and screams at the very thought of having to share 'feelings'......

And then....

.... two days later she's paralyzed.  

Unable to create, to set into pictures or words, all those things--all those feelings that she's contended with day after day after day.
She had notes, she told me.  Reading those things she jotted down reduced her to tears.
Most, centered on pain--lots of pain.  Physical pain, emotional pain....

And she stared at her 'canvas', paralyzed to paint over the pain--to give it life.....again.

There's something about her paralysis that was familiar.  And painful.  I wasn't feeling my pain, the pain that came from the seemingly unending doctor's appointments and hours of sitting in a chair, watching poison being added to the body that didn't have control over the manufacturing of mature, healthy blood cells.  I can stand outside of me and not feel a thing as I watch the memory that's faded and contorted into something that just........was.....but isn't.

"Dearheart--you never have to do it alone.  You have your Patron Saint--let her help you.  It's worth it.....you're worth it."

She sent me photos yesterday--

Standing under an umbrella of love as it rained pain around her.......she created.  

Keys growing from the recesses of darkness--she created.

Doors opening into light with love...and hope......she created.

She told me it was 'hard'.....but effortless.  Once she clutched her Patron Saint and just started--IT happened.

I understand that one.  I handed mine over and created different with what was given to me, too.

She's going to know a new freedom.  And a sense of joy for the journey.  That's the giving back the surrender offers up.....if only the hands open up to be willing to receive.  

Never alone.  Never......ever.....alone.

And always....ALWAYS--

.....worth it.....