Saturday, July 11, 2009

Dear God,

As I sat in mass this morning, I wished I had a rosary. Sister Jeanne Marie gave me one several years ago but I don't know where it is. When I start cleaning out my house, perhaps I will find it.

In the evening I returned to the monastery with my friend. As we were walking out to the car after evening prayer, she handed me a gift, a rosary from a sacred healing site. I was so delighted.

The next morning I drove to the ocean to dance. It was a gray, misty day and I knew I didn't have to worry about the sun since I can't be in the sun due to health reasons. As I got out of my car, a woman I had seen at mass one morning, who also had given me a scripture card in the grocery story one day, showed up again. "I never get out this early or walk this way." She told me.

She began to talk about resentment and how she had been dumping resentment all week in mass. She shared how her sewer had backed up in her house and how it had been a metaphor for all the resentment she had held on to for years. She was letting it go. She talked with me for about 30 minutes until the sun started to shine. I told her I only had a few minutes to dance. She smiled and then left.

I danced, lifting my hands in praise, singing out my adoration and then I stood to pray. When I got back to my car, the woman returned. "I want you to have this," she told me, "it came from Jerusalem." She handed me a rosary. I thanked her and then gave her a big hug.

A thought, a need, a desire expressed in church seemed to be a prayer rising to heaven. Although I didn't mention it to anyone, you answered that prayer twice in less than 24 hours. You brought this woman to me three times, every time offering me something I needed. I too was trying to surrender resentment that has been backed up in my own life, robbing me of hope, peace and joy.

Two rosaries lay on my antique desk, gestures of love from heaven.

Heaven's suffering love
touched the depths
of my own
suffering love.
Gazing upon Jesus
on the cross,
I am reminded
of your
great love
for sufferers.

Grateful, so very grateful, Andrea