Seven Months and Counting. . .

A few day ago the pain was so  bad (Monday) that I laid in bed and said to myself, "I think the foreskin of my heart has been circumcised. It felt cut up, sawed off, as if a butcher surgeon had hacked off several pieces of it and just for fun. Grief. Good grief! Today I feel better, but I have removed most of H's pictures from the walls, stay away from old familiar haunts, do not listen to his voice on the recorded lectures, no pictures on my facebook, etc., it seems to help. I need to be in new surroundings so that I am not triggered by everything...but I cannot get away from my future. . . where Hans lived so poignantly...where the promises of God are held and nourish my dreadful soul. How can I separate these two realities?  I am mostly triggered by introducing myself, "My name is J---Weerstra." All that it implies is before my eyes...

Soon a year will have come and gone and I can't believe I have actually existed this long without seeing Hans or talking to him or seeing him go through the house to get a cup of tea.  Will it ever get easier? I dream of new beginnings constantly but they disintegrate by nightfall, when I am the weakest. Well, its only been seven months...

God comes in on little cat's feet.

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God comes in on little cat's feet. A take on an old poem, but true. I sit before a roaring fire this cold November day and I can hear the furnace come on, oh so quietly. I think, how did the furnace get on? How did the air conditioners get turned off? Who did this work which makes my life so comfortable and easy. An uncle came and twisted a few knobs and then the furnace was lit. A few days later, Julianne and I went up on the roof and emptied the water and slipped in the dampers. And the deed was done, but for some reason, it seemed like a dream. Was Hans here in the middle of the night? Did he do this work silently while I slept? No, it was my beloved bridegroom who arranged this lovely event for me. Not because I am not able, but because I am not able right now to even think my way out of a paper bag.

The same is true for my teeth. A silent helping arm wrote the check to my dentist for no small amount. For me, it was a miracle that I was taking part in. Two dentists who held my hand and offered me consolation as they poked around my mouth. But this morning, the worst is over and I am nestled in my husband's black soft robe and thinking he is at Lowe's buying something for breakfast. And then I know that God has been here on little cat's feet and I haven't heard a thing, only the effects of His hand.

Mary Oh Mary!

A dark and yet divine fire devours me. For what end? Consider Mary Magdalen, "in spite of her past, paid no heed to the crowds, prominent as well as unknown, at the banquet. She did not consider the propriety of weeping and shedding tears in the presence of our Lord's guests. Her only concern

was to reach him for whom her soul was already wounded and on fire, without delay and without waiting for another more appropriate time (Luke 7:37-38).

And such is the inebriation and courage of love; knowing that her beloved was shut up in the tomb by a huge sealed rock and surrounded by guards so the disciples could not steal his body, she did not permit this to keep her from going out with ointments before daybreak to anoint Him (Mt. 27:64-66; Mk 16;1-2;

Jn 20:1).

Finally this inebriation and urgent longing of love prompted her to ask the man she thought was the gardener if he had stolen him and, if he had, to tell her where he had put him, so that she could take him away (Jn 20:15). She did not stop to realize that her question in the light of sound judgment was foolish, for obviously if he had stolen the Lord he would not have told her, and still less would he have allowed her to take him away.

The strength and vehemence of love has this trait: everything seems possible to it, and it believes everyone is occupied as it is; it does not believe anyone could possible be employed in any other way or seek anyone than him whom it seeks and loves...

And so the wounded soul so vexed rises up at night, and anxiously and forcibly goes out in search of its God. Since it is immersed in darkness it feels his absence and feels that it is dying without love of him."

And so my soul is purged of all remaining fears— of man, of the future, of self... so driven I am by my own darkness. . . that I die lest I find Him. Attach to Him and not to be my beloved earthly bridegroom. And hence my soul will be renewed and will be clothed anew, shed of its old skin.