Another Big Stepping Stone

In the UK last Sunday was Mothering Sunday – traditionally a time that people went home to visit there Mothers, and their Mother Church. It has been adopted as our Mothers Day..

There was a line in the sermon on Sunday – something like
“Some people’s happy event is other people’s nightmare”

Yeah – it was a nightmare for me.

I shouldn’t have gone to church, I guess because I knew what the sermon was going to be (I’d been given a sneak preview earlier last week) I thought I’d be ok. But I wasn’t. There were prayers I couldn’t say… which is ok because God knows I can’t say them. The service was a really good attempt at trying to hold together those who have a good experience of Mothers, and Motherhood, and those of us who don’t. It just didn’t help me.

I have many times stood waiting to administer the chalice and told God “with my Body I thee worship – I am only here in body, my heart and soul hurts too much to be here and wants to be elsewhere”. I am aware of the incongruity of the statement, the very fact I am praying means I am there in more than physical body, at least part of my mind is engaged. This Sunday I stood with tears in my eyes, wishing I was somewhere else.

Jesus spoke to me “You know this that is causing you the pain wasn’t your fault?”

“Yeah I know – but can you understand the pain I feel?
“Yeah” and he stood with me.

He stood with me reassuring me that I was ok, that though not my fault, the pain was very legitimate, and he would not take it away, but he would stand with me in amongst the pain. I found his presence very reassuring the rest of the day as I wept myself to sleep. Aware as I awoke that he was still with me. I Didn’t really get anything I’d planned to do on Sunday done, and the echoes of the pain are still reverberating around my soul, making breathing hard work. I explained, in a lot more detail than here, my day to one of my wise men. I told him what was happening, and how I reacted, and that Sunday had been a very painful day but I was ok. He replied that he thought I was very ok. And we talked of how this day was another big stepping stone in my journey.