Friday, July 31, 2009

Dear God,

As I walked down the rehabilitation hospital hallway, I noticed works of art hanging on the walls. I stopped for a moment to look at each painting and then I read the plaque beside each one. Every artist had suffered a critical injury leaving them a paraplegic, paralyzed at the waist or some other devastating condition. Yet, through rehab they had learned how to paint. One painter had a spinal cord injury, systemic lupus, asthma, and muscular dystrophy. She is a high school teacher and so grateful to you to be the source of her life.

As I turned the corner to visit someone, I thought of St. Paul when he wrote about being content in whatever condition he found himself. Tossed around for his faith, beaten, imprisioned, shipwrecked and persecuted with an ever-growing, irritating thorn in his side, he was emboldened to write the words of contentment.

One life lesson these last few weeks has been about contentment, simply being content with where I am in my life right now, no matter the situation. By nature I am an organized person. I am most at peace when my life is in order, my home, finances, relationships, projects, etc. When things are in order, I breathe the air of peaceful contentment. On the other hand, when things are in disarray, I am unsettled, anxious, and undone. I struggle.

My life has felt chaotic, moving from place to place. My nomadic existence has rattled me. No area of my life has been settled, organized or resolved. I have been pained by it all. But what I have discovered these last few months has been invaluable to me. An uprooted condition can lead to new learnings. I have learned how to go with the flow. I have learned how to settle in unsettled situations. I have learned how to find peace in chaos. I have learned how to change and then change again under certain conditions. I have learned that things can get worse but worsening conditions lead to greater trust in you. I have learned that you are greater than any difficult problem. I have learned to look for truth in myself and others. I have learned that you are with me always.

"A smooth sea does not make for a skilled mariner." I read recently on a hospital wall. So true. If my life had been smooth, unfolding just as I predicted it would during this time, perhaps I would not have grasped at these life lessons. They have come to me as a gift during perhaps the most traumatic time of my life.

You are God;
there is
no other.
I stand looking
up at
the sky
wondering how
creation was formed.
What did
you think
as you
pulled together
the stuff
of human life?
I stand amazed
at divine love.

Always yours, Andrea