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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