How the healing Happens
Work has been heavy recently. I wrote this poem on Monday, after a particularly hard day. It’s about how the healing happens, how God is found, and how the smallest things can and do have the most impact. I am on a mission to remember the many reasons this life is so worth living and delighting in. I am choosing to believe in the promise of if I faithfully seek I shall truly find. Letting myself be in awe, open to the holy when the world often wants me to feel like it is only suffering, and trust that God can always be found.
I look out the window and see how the setting sun’s rays dance through the tree branches laden with leaves. The branches stretch out wide—like arms raised, swaying to the song of the wind swiftly scooting by. I ponder how the healing happens. How in the midst of such pain that exists—there can still be such beauty and magic right before my eyes. So, I pick up pen and paper and write a list. A list of how the healing happens and all the many places where it can be found.
It is in the way Will holds me and how safe, treasured, and comforted I feel when my husband holds me close and lets me cry as I process caring for another life gone by.
How chocolate chip cookies always help—even if only store bought.
How tears bring healing.
And how yellow roses are like sun beams breaking through the clouds on a dreary day.
How cheering for someone, you might not even particularly like, feels good and shouting with joy at their success reminds you we are all humans sharing together in this beautiful mess.
How sharing grief with others makes it a little more manageable to bear.
How people of different faith traditions can feel united in love, wisdom, hope, and the sharing of difficult work.
How tea always helps.
How life finds a way to keep moving forward.
How letting go brings peace—even in the midst of excruciating pain.
How this world can still be so beautiful while also making space for so much pain and how that strange and jarring combination makes life so rich with flavor.
How snapdragons make me believe in God.
How a pupper’s excited welcome lets you know you are loved.
How somehow in the midst of it all hope breaks in—like blooms through the cement or rainbows after a quick and powerful thunderstorm.
How if I look for joy I always seem to find it.
How writing has always saved me.
How gratitude makes me believe in the power of love and when I count it—it multiplies over and over.
How the peace I feel sitting beneath the branches of an ancient oak tree feels like resting soundly in the arms of God. How that thought caused me to stop and appreciate.
How time outside is time well spent.
How laughter and time with family is the best medicine.
How exciting it is when your grandmother joins your dinner party.
How lovely it is to eat outside
And how the gift is that we invited to show up, be present, and celebrate this life.
How I notice the difference when my breath flows easier.
How thankful I am for a shift in thinking and for an openness to delight.
How this list could go on and on.
And how grateful I am for that.
Amen.
