Have you ever experienced PEACE? (A story about another’s faith)

The first time I heard the phrase “the peace that passes all understanding” I was sitting at the one end of a fabulous lunch table, casually popping a chunk of ice into my glass of Chardonnay. I had just lost my mom and someone asked me how I was coping.

 

Taking a big gulp of wine, I tried to explain to her that although I was utterly distraught about the void she had left with her sudden departure, I had this incredible sense of CALM that had come over me.  “At first I put it down to shock. You know? A kind of inertia that my BODY had gifted to me in order to cope with the loss. Isn’t the BODY amazing like that?” I said with a genuine appreciation for the hormones that I believed had carried me to that place of peace.

 

“That’s the holy spirit” she replied matter of factly as she slowly dipped her piece of bread into a mixture of balsamic vinegar and olive oil. “I guarantee you, that is ONLY the holy spirit who can do that!” 

 

Now, as the beneficiary of a lovely Catholic convent education (With a tonn of experience of telling fibs inside the Confessional. Judge not!), one would think that I would have been quick with something rather Bible-ly to say to her in return. Alas not.

 

The only thing I could manage was “I am so grateful!”

 

And truthfully, I still am.  Grateful for the wine, grateful for the peace, grateful for being in the presence of someone with such unwavering conviction.  God knows, that’s the kind of faith that moves mountains.

 

© Aluta continua, as they say.  A Heart Full of Stories, 2017

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A Prayer Answered

If you have ever lost someone you love, you will know that it sucks the life out of you.

 

Standing at the shore, I let my heart break. The pieces fell hard and wave after wave picked up a piece and took it away. Completely centred, I stilled myself more, allowing the feelings to come and the waves to go.

 

Softly, the tears fell. Softly too, the waves came in perfect rhythm.    

 

My prayer that morning was a simple one :  I asked that the same one that made the waves, the same one that made my sad heart, would hold my mother in tenderness as she traveled back “home”. She had just passed away and the smell of her still followed me everywhere.

 

Looking back at the footprints and with the sound of the waves getting more and more faint, I realised that the prayer was not only about my mother. It was also about me. For me.  I needed her to journey well, so that I could journey well too.  My happiness was contingent on it.

 

Knowing for sure that my prayer was answered, I began to walk back to the boardwalk.  The connectedness I felt to the ocean, its rhythm and the creator of it all was not for me to try and understand in that moment. (Or perhaps ever!)

 

Instead, I bowed my head for a second in gratitude, delighted that there are undoubtedly magical moments and miracles on the most ordinary of days. Indeed when we’re silent and centered, plugging into the rhythm of the divine flow is not only necessary, it is completely instinctive. A rhythm most divine.

 

 

Ask me, I know.

 

© A Heart Full of Stories, 2017

 

Aluta continua, as they say.  Allow me to wish you a million opportunities on the most ordinary of days to plug into the magic and surrender to the rhythm that sustains us all.