Monday, March 18, 2013

Dear God,

I have a week's worth of spiritually extraordinary events that came just today!  What makes them extraordinary?  They are events where you had a hand upon the participants.  No doubt!

This morning in worship when our pastor asked us to consider the best gifts we may have received or given, two came to me along with tears of thanksgiving.  The first came on December 24, 1997 and the other on December 25, 1997.

On Christmas Eve that year my covenant group had met at the Carmelite Monastery for our early morning weekly time together.  As we shared a devotion, prayer, and had begun our time of spiritual sharing, we heard the sound of angels singing.  The music got closer and closer until we realized it was the sisters sharing in their annual tradition of moving through the monastery with their creche and the holy family to prepare each room to receive Christ at Christmas.  They would move from room to room, pause, read a scripture, sing, and then move again.  As they stood singing outside our room, we moved to join them and then they moved once again.  When we concluded our sharing we walked through the doorway into the inner sanctum, down the hallway, around the corner and into the chapel where we all worshiped together with morning prayer, liturgy and Holy Communion.

Following that time they asked me to sit in a circle and one by one alone each sister came to me, placed her hands on my head, back, or shoulders and prayed for my healing from breast cancer.  I remember feeling the hands of angels.  It had to be one of the most meaningful events of my life.

The very next night on Christmas, the evening before my cancer surgery on December 26, my husband held me in his arms and sang hymns to me until I fell asleep.  To feel his loving embrace, to experience the wonder of faith, and to rest in trust left me spellbound and prepared to lose my breast and my cancer.

I realized once again that for me no gift is greater than the gift of love and faith.

You are God;
there is none
like you.
I am grateful
to be counted
as one
of your children.
I am blessed,
so very blessed
for I know
you are
the source,
the true source
of my joy!

Love, Andrea