Opening the Heart.

Wednesday Wisdom: Opening the Heart

This past weekend, my husband and I traveled to Palm Springs for my mother’s memorial mass. It was a goodbye to so many things–to the house where we shared so many meals, conversations and memories with my mother and father and family for almost thirty years. It was a goodbye to my mother’s community, as we celebrated her life at a lovely memorial mass and reception. It was a true surrender, filled with deep sorrow and deep joy.

The morning of my mother’s memorial mass, I went swimming in the outdoor pool in Palm Springs. It would be my last swim there. I had swam in that Olympic outdoor pool so many times, when I was elated with good things happening in my life, and when I was tearful, and feeling absolutely defeated by life. As I looked up at the blue sky, scattered with clouds, I sensed how large life was, and that death was beyond anything I could grasp, anything I could comprehend. And so was love. I felt my mother’s spirit spread out across the sky.

[bctt tweet=”The journey of love that we take in our lives is bigger than we can grasp.” username=”ColetteLafia”] The journey of love that we take in our lives is bigger than we can grasp. It is larger than the sky, the ocean, the mountains. The love relationship I shared with my mother stretched my heart beyond what I thought I was capable of. I learned to love in a big way with my mother. I learned to accept someone’s limitations, to forgive, to appreciate, and to seek intimacy. This is why the grief is so deep–because the love was so deep.

Let us take the journey of love in our lives, and open our hearts beyond what we imagine we are capable of.

Pause and Reflect

• How are you being invited to surrender to love today?
• How are you being called to stretch open?

 

Stretch Open and Surrender

 

Surrender requires a release, a yielding, the willingness to give our desires to God and allow them to be transformed in grace. When we let go, we are giving something up, but we are also getting something in return. Surrender is a path into more lightness, joy, and gratitude in our hearts and in our daily lives. Can we surrender into the fullness of love?