Grief Can Transform Us

Wednesday Wisdom. How Grief Can Transform Us.

Now that both my parents are deceased, I feel the need to let grief transform me. The other day I was looking for something on my book shelf and came across my father’s copy of the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius of Loyola. I pulled the hardback book off the shelf, opened the red cover, and inside slipped between the pages I found a handwritten note of my father’s: By your cross Jesus, free me from past fantasies to control past events and people; for riches, fame, honor; and to re-do my life. Make me Your follower. Give me Deep Compassion.

In that moment, I was hit with the hurricane of my father’s heart. How he struggled and prayed for grace to come to peace with his life. In that moment, I realized I was constantly wanting to re-do the past. I was constantly feeling disappointment in myself. I held the note, and it felt as though God had handed it me, and offered me a gift.

I took this note, and my aching heart to spiritual direction, taking the story that had been passed down from generation to generation out of the closet of shame and fear. As I held this note out in the company of a trusted companion, I felt an arrow pierce my heart. “I can’t carry this anymore,” I cried.

We reach a time when God wants to heal us. I was being called to let go. Certain things of the past need to die, in order for us to be transformed.

What is left after this stripping away?

As I sat in silence, deeply dwelling in this question, all I felt was an emptiness. I realized that I was being called to allow more emptiness within–and to let the emptying out transform me. Could I discover another way of being in my life, and with myself, and ultimately with God?

There is something else asking to be born in me; another way I don’t know yet. What was required was for me to stay close to Divine love, to say yes  to what I don’t know yet, and to allow for this emptying and stripping away.

Can we put down what is no longer serving us, the story we carry from the past or the stones in our hearts? How are we being invited to become as light as a butterfly, so we can transform into the beautiful creature we are meant to be?

All that is required is to trust and to stay close to the heart of Divine love.