Monday, September 22, 2014

God's Healing is Yellow

Many moons ago, I had a particular experience in ministry that was particularly hurtful to me. It is not important what the exact experience was. What is important is how God’s grace healed me.

For years, I carried around what I call hurtful experience. It ate at me. It poisoned me. I was not able to let it go. In early December 2013, I made a conscious decision to let it go. I prayed, I discerned, but it would not go away. I tried my best to release hurtful experience on the Zumba dance floor. To no avail, I ended up with a debilitating, slow-healing, painful case of tendentious of the hip. Like Jacob wrestling with God in the Jabbok, I was wrestling with God over letting hurtful experience go, and I would not get up until God gave God’s blessing.

December, February, March, and April I wrestled with God, hurting hip and all. At the end of April, I attended retreat with female ministers sponsored by the Kentucky Council of Churches with funds provided by the Lilly Foundation. It was during this retreat, my wrestling ended and my hip was healed.

The purpose of the grant funds were to ensure that ministers were taking care of themselves by receiving hospitality and healing through peer groups. As givers of constant hospitality and healing, ministers do not often allow themselves spaces of grace, or finances to treat themselves to instances of hospitality. And so, off to the spa our group went.

Laying on the massage table, the therapist begins to vigorously work my hip. It hurts. It hurts like hell. I want to scream, but there is a colleague receiving a massage next to me, so I do not. A tear falls to the ground. The therapist continues to push. And as she pushes, the Spirit says to me- “Let it go. Let the hurtful experience go. Another tear.

She pushes more and more, and I start to let it out. The therapist moves down my leg, and as she does, I see a vision. A vision of myself, standing in a large open field. The field is full of yellow flowers. Janquils, yellow rod, daises, speckle the spring green grass. A bubbling spring runs behind me with clear water. It is peaceful. The sun is shining down upon me. I am ultimately, blissfully happy. I am dancing, twirling in a circle with a wide smile, holding a yellow flower.

The music in the spa changes. It is a rendition of “It is Well with my Soul.” My heart sings –
When peace like a river attendeth my soul
When sorrows like sea billows roll
 Whatever my lot, though has taught me to say
 It is well, it is well with my soul.

Thanks be to God, I feel well for the first time in months. It is gone, hurtful experience  is gone.

The vision continues. The dream calls me to the water behind me. It calls me to write hurtful experience on a piece of paper and float it down the river.  So, in my dream, I do. And as that paper floats away, so do the years of anger, contempt, and struggle. The music in the spa changes,
When I find myself in times of trouble,
Mother Mary comes to me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be
And in my hour of darkness
She is standing right in front of me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be
Let it be, let it be
Let it be, let it be
Whisper words of wisdom, let it be

And when the broken hearted people
Living in the world agree
There will be an answer, let it be
For though they may be parted
There is still a chance that they will see
There will be an answer, let it be
Let it be, let it be
Let it be, let it be
Yeah there will be an answer, let it be
Let it be, let it be
Let it be, let it be
Whisper words of wisdom, let it be.

     
Five days after the celebration of Jesus resurrection, I sit, naked under my own shroud. Like the tomb, the spa is dark. Like Jesus’ broken body, I am draped in white cloth. 
            But Lord, tis for thee, thy coming we wait
            The sky not the grave is our goal.
            Oh trump of the angel, oh voice of the Lord
            Blessed hope, it is well with my soul.

Like the excitement of the Disciple’s who do not find Jesus in the tomb, I am ecstatic. Naked before God, I want to run, skip, jump through the fields praising God’s healing power. Like the man at the pool of Bethzada, I am ready to stand up and walk.
            And the Lord haste the day when my faith shall be sight
            The clouds be rolled back as a scroll
            The trump shall resound and the Lord shall descend
            Even so, It is well with my soul.

I am ready to rise, yet I cannot. I sit. Stunned by amazing grace. I cannot move. Tears flow, tears of joy and more joy. Tears of a new baptism, a remembrance of my calling as a minister to Christ’s church. Tears that I am God’s beloved child. And so I lay, peaceful. Non-moving, unable to arise from my state of new birth, enjoying the warmth of my burial shroud. Let it be.

 Later that afternoon, our group returns to our cabin. I already know that God plans my afternoon for more quiet. Members of my group go to take naps and prayer time. I walk. Carrying a journal, prayer book, and my colored pencils in hand, I travel away from our cabin. This is a new place for me, I’ve never ventured there before. But I have the sense, in God’s providence, there is a stream, and yellow flowers. I follow a stream to a large field. It is a baseball field, not a meadow. There are no yellow flowers, but is close enough.

I sit. I write. I write about “It is Well” and “Let it be.” I draw my vision – yellow flowers, me dancing, sun shining, the stream behind me. When I am finished, I write hurtful experience on a piece of paper. I walk over to the stream and I drop it in.

At first  hurtful experience moves slowly. It stops and pools. Then, it begins to run quickly over rapids. Like a child, I follow it with joy. Like an adult, I follow it pensively. My anger towards hurtful experience has become such a defining factor for my life, it feels like I am letting go all of me. Again, the paper floats slowly, then more rapids. I run, but I am blocked from its sight by a group of trees. When I reach the other side, the paper is gone – swallowed by deep cleansing waters.
            It is gone. I am not sure I am ready for hurtful experience to be gone, but it is gone. I thank God – for helping me to let go of the anger, the resentment, the unkind words, the hateful feelings I have towards the people involved in the hurtful experience.  I say goodbye, and I give thanks to God for healing. And, then, I see them! A great bunch of yellow daises growing between two rocks, planted directly between my two feet. Yellow flowers, given to me, on this day, by God, just for me.


I turn to walk back to the cabin. It is the field of my vision. Not visible before on my walk down, but everywhere on my return to the cabin – yellow flowers. Daises, natural violets, goldenrod, dandelions. Flowers everywhere, and they are all yellow. Thanks be to God, they are all yellow!


Art credits to Cliff Sullivan, Lexington, Kentucky. The picture does not do the painting justice. https://www.facebook.com/pages/Cliffs-Art/131025403608120


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