Enduring Hope
Liminal Space
It has been a season of waiting, in-between time, of liminal space. I had knee replacement surgery in mid-January and following that, for two weeks, I did my exercises. I rested in the interval. I read, waited expectantly to heal, and prayed. At the end of this period, my husband came home ill and was diagnosed with Covid-19. Both of us had escaped contracting the virus all of these years and had our shots and boosters, so we were surprised and unfortunately, he was struck hard. At the end of his week of illness, I got sick too. It has been a month of being housebound, except for a few excursions between surgery time and illness. Liminal space is a transition period, akin to standing in a doorway. It is not a comfortable or easy place, the in-between, but now that I have come to the end of it, I am leaning into the transformation this time has afforded me.
History of Anticipation
Like this period, I am familiar with living with anticipation, tense anticipation, dread and worry over my son who lives with addiction and has been caught up in his addiction actively for years. I am so accustomed to living in that state that to emerge on the other side of this to it to this light-filled, hopeful joy of Ben being clean and filled with the love of God is almost dream-like. And yet, almost daily, I receive cheerful messages from him filled with quotes of scripture, and I am leaning into this new reality. I am anxious to visit him in a few days. There is so much happiness in the simple act of visiting, doing things with him, and just talking to him. He has been restored by God’s love to his true self and says he never wants to become disconnected again from the Lord.
The program he is in is brilliant and involves all parts of the individual. He has become extremely fit and health-conscious, he is learning daily about ways to counter cravings, reframing his thoughts, and he is studying The Word. He has stepped up into a kind of pre-leadership role in his house and has helped several men who were suicidal, who had relapsed, and who wanted to leave. The program instills Jesus’ love for wayfarers and the lost, and Ben has soaked it in like a sponge.
Finding his Path
I am taking baby steps out to my old regular walking routine, like Ben is venturing into new realms after he graduates next week. He will start taking leadership classes there and I am so thrilled that he will be cementing his new life firmly by helping other people. I have such gratitude for the gift of redemption. The false, ugly, polluted mask of his former life has dropped and revealed the truth.
Sealing the Cracks
The longer that Ben stays clean and works the steps of this program, the more of God’s golden healing fill the cracks of my broken heart. Kintsugi is the Japanese art of repairing pottery with powdered gold. It treats breakage and the repair of the breakage as part of the history of an object. It is a lovely and apt analogy for recovery from grief and from addiction.
It is a paradigm shift – “As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives.” Henry David Thoreau
The Ploughman
by Patrick Kavanagh
I turn the lea-green down
Gaily now, and pain the meadow brown
with my plough.
I dream with silvery gull
and brazen crow.
A thing that is beautiful
I may know.
Tranquility walk with me
and no care
O, quiet ecstacy
Like a prayer.
I find a star – lovely art
In a dark sod
Joy that is timeless!
O heart that knows God
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