Trusting Vulnerability

I have received a few emails in response to my most recent couple of posts. I wanted to share with you a reply I wrote to one of those emails. Thank you for being gentle with me as I open up my journey to you.

"Thank you.

I have been ever so reluctant to address Satan because of the ways in which I have seen him been used as a dumping ground for people who have no desire to take responsibility for their choices. Father Charlie has talked to me about Satan a few times and I have been reluctant there as well. It has only been since the picture came into my head of being bombed that I have opened up to facing him again.

I did have a dream a few months ago where I was enslaved in a thin layer of concrete - unable to move and Satan was at my ear whispering in it. All the prayers I said outloud did nothing. I recited the Apostle's Creed. Nothing. I plead the blood of Christ. Nothing. But the moment I cried out "Christ have mercy" the layer of concrete disintegrated and I was set free. So free that I woke from my dream gasping from breath because the struggle had been so vicious.

Yesterday at Mass, as I prayed, I felt like Christ was speaking to me of being willing to be vulnerable as He was vulnerable on the cross and continues to be in the Eucharist. To trust that if I make myself vulnerable to my feelings he will join me in my vulnerability and I will be safe. Kind of like that moment in the movie "The Titanic" where Jack and Rose are standing at the front of the ship with their arms stretched outward.

Dearest one is not well at all. We get the results of the ultrasound tomorrow. He is in pain 24/7 now with the only relief coming when he resorts to heavy pain medication. Even then it only takes the edge off, it never completely erases it. We are hopeful for a diagnosis soon and that it is something easily fixable. We are blessed to be able to talk about our fears, our plans, our future, openly. That we could ever be where we are together on the journey feels like an incredible gift. We haven't lost sight of that.

Thank you for your prayers. I am convinced that the prayers of others, as well as my own, give birth to the breakthroughs that continue to happen, the freedom that continues to beckon, and the true peace that occasionally finds its home in me.

On a lighter note, last weekend before I spoke at the retreat, a group of women sang and prayed over me and anointed me with oil. I felt filled with light. About three quarters of the way through the day I asked God what the heck was that feeling anyway. I felt like God playfully flicked his hand at me and said, "That's what peace feels like." I chuckled to myself and told God I'd take more of where that came from please.

God bless you."