Finding peace in the pain...
My wonder shot is causing some issues, my team at NIH is trying to sort out if I'm in a flare, or having a reaction underneath the shot... Can we just be honest, none of that is good news, or at all easy to tolerate! Pain, headaches, nausea, and did I mention pain, and an unbelievable desire to scrub away all my flesh, for some relief from the itching of hives... Sorry to be so blunt.
My team is unstoppable, so no worries, we will get good answers in a few hours, but my beauties had the day-off, I'm in bed and my beloved is home from work... Everyone is having a Monday!
Yesterday, two of my adorable neighbors received their First Holy Communion, a beautiful day in the Catholic Church. Second graders put on their beautiful white dresses and receive the Body of Christ for the first time. It is a day of celebration, and I love it! But this year, I missed it... It was not to be, I spent the day in bed, waiting for news on the Mass from my peeps.
Waiting and pain seem to go hand and hand for me, not always the best bed fellows, but the ones, I'm forced to make peace with. And peace we do, because without peacefulness, we are all disasters: we are angry, bitter, and more importantly alone. And when our life is at its most difficult, we can't be alone. We need our spiritual nourishment, we need the constancy of faith... Because in the chaos, is silence, and when you can reach the eye of the storm, for just a minute you find the peace in the pain.
How do I do it?... I shut it all down, I climb into bed, stop and listen to her (my body). Listen, to what I'm trying to so desperately ignore and let her tell me the sad truth, the truth I can't bear to hear... This body is more broken than I let on, she is starved for rest and balance, and she needs to find the silence.
That very message, for 14 days I have turned off, pushed through, laughed at, and attempted to forget. You see I won the medical lottery, I had the golden ticket, I had THE SHOT, I was going to leave this sad diseased body behind and make my own Bionic Woman.... But, my beautiful body had news for me... Not so much, she said.
When will I ever learn; you can't run away from the things we don't like about ourselves... We have to love them more... To care for the brokenness, it is our true and honest gift, our brokeness is our humanity, our real truth. And it is the gift that we try to neglet, ignore and push to the side... We fail our gift, we fail to see that it is what makes us unique, beatuiful and perfect in God's eyes.
We are the gift... Why do we try so hard to ignore it?
My real truth is not the high-heel, ponytail, scotch drinking, set the biz world on fire girl... The real truth is the loving, green tea drinking me, that sometimes spends too much time in pj's. That can't always wear a bra because the pain in my ribs.... so debilitaing that I can't breathe... Within that pain is my ability to love at its most basic level, it's the me that does't judge, but just loves, it tollerates the imperfect.... It is in that space... my soul sustains me, it basks in the light of Christ, not the girl running for the fences, trying to be everything to everyone...
And frankly, as we approach Mother's Day, that is not the girl; I want to teach my children... I need to remember that Christ is always hanging with the less desirable, the imperfect and that in my brokenness is the real me, the girl searching for balance, finding peace, letting go of perfection and just being myself...
So curled up in bed, writing with an open heart, I'm reminded again to look for the Devine in my brokeness... To embrace her...
Embrace the gifts, I'm blessed to have...
And as always the the Devine in me bows to the Devine in you...
xo,
Kathryn the Pilgrimage Gal
photo credit:
via
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