“A pearl,” Meg murmured.
“A pearl,” Katherine echoed, nodding slowly. “I’m watching God form you into a beautiful pearl, Margaret,” she said with deep feeling. “Your father named you well.”
Her father.
Meg sat a long time in Katherine’s fortifying presence, allowing her mind to wander into dark and difficult places. “I don’t know why I’m so upset about my dad,” she finally said. “I mean . . . what difference does it make to me now? Does it really matter how he died? It doesn’t change anything about growing up without him.”
Katherine paused before answering. “Everything you thought was true about his death has just been shaken upside down,” she said slowly. “And that’s worth grieving.”
“But it happened more than forty years ago.”
“I know . . . And you grieved in your own way as a little girl. But I suspect that you’ve never grieved the loss of your dad as an adult.”
Katherine was right. That had never even occurred to her.
“You’ve just discovered that there’s a real possibility your father’s death wasn’t an accident. That’s a profound thing to grieve, Meg. A hard and profound thing. And with all the unanswered questions swirling around, this will take time. It’s not something to be rushed. And God is never impatient with us. So take your time . . . Take it slowly and reverently. We need to be reverent with our pain.”
Grieving, grieving, grieving. Meg wasn’t sure she had the strength to grieve anything else right now. She breathed deeply.
Katherine leaned in closer. “Think about the process of grieving your beloved Jim and how much courage you’ve shown just to allow his memory to live again,” she said gently. “It’s easier to stay in denial. We can hear voices in our heads, saying, ‘Remember how painful it was the first time? You certainly don’t want to go back and go through it all again!’ But the path to freedom and healing takes us right through the heart of the pain. Jesus the Good Shepherd walks with you through the darkness, Meg. You’re not alone. Never alone.”
Meg blew her nose delicately and sighed. “I still hear my mother’s voice inside my head, telling me to just get over it. I should be strong enough to just get over it.”
Smiling, Katherine shook her head slightly. “God never says, ‘Just get over it,’ Meg. Never. God says, ‘Give it to me.’ And there’s an enormous difference between the two.”
Meg was taken aback. She had spent years trying to stuff and contain her grief. She had spent years trying to be strong enough to get over it. She had never thought about offering her sorrow to God in prayer, and she felt something shift in her spirit.
“It takes courage to grieve well,” Katherine continued, reaching for her mug of tea again, “and God is able to give you the courage. Look how much courage the Lord has already given you in such a short amount of time!”
Meg looked down at her boots. “I guess it’s easy to lose sight of how far I’ve come if I’m only looking at how far I have to go,” she murmured.
Katherine nodded. “The process of transformation is never complete this side of heaven. But the Good Shepherd faithfully and lovingly leads and guides us as we say yes to him. These things have come to light now because God is working to heal you. And you’re ready to receive the healing. That’s good news, isn’t it? The Spirit of God is moving.”
Moving, stirring, revealing, shaking.
Meg was beginning to wonder if the Spirit offered a remedy for motion sickness.
Mara
Mara sat in Dawn’s office on Wednesday morning, staring at a two-dimensional painted figure on top of the bookcase. The little girl had her arms raised high above her head, her outstretched hands open wide in a posture of trust and joy.
“Is that new?” Mara asked, pointing.
Dawn turned around, following her gaze. “I put it there about six months ago.”
“Seriously? I’m surprised I didn’t see it before.” Mara kept staring at the little girl.
Dawn watched her and then asked, “So, what do you think, Mara? Is she receiving or letting go?”
Mara wasn’t sure. “It’s impossible to tell,” she replied after a while. “It’s the same gesture for both.”
“Go on,” Dawn urged.
Mara sighed. “And I still don’t know how to live with my hands open. I still have tons of junk to dump, and for some reason I keep clinging to it. Some days I feel like I’m not getting anywhere.”
“But you are getting somewhere, Mara. I’ve watched you take huge strides forward! Think about what you’ve just managed to do with forgiving the woman in your group. That was really significant.”
Mara shook her head. “But it just kicked up all kinds of old crap too.”
“Like what?”
“Like all the girls who teased and rejected me and made my life miserable. All the ones who never apologized and probably never even realized what they did to me. I mean, it was one thing to forgive Charissa. She said she was sorry. But I just can’t seem to let the other ones go. And that’s crazy. It shouldn’t be a big deal, but it is. And now that I’m thinking about them again after all these years, I’m even angrier. It’s like the thing with Charissa just brought all the old wounds out again. And it sucks to have to remember all the things I’ve been trying so hard to forget.” She paused. “Even though I know what Katherine would say. I know what you’re gonna say. You’re gonna tell me that they’ve come to mind for a reason, right? That God is stirring up all the junk so I can see it, let go of it, and be healed.”
Dawn smiled at her. “See how far you’ve come?”
Mara exhaled slowly and sat back heavily in the chair. She knew what was coming next.
“So, Mara. Let’s talk about these girls.”
Together
Hannah, Meg, and Mara sat together at the back corner table on Saturday morning, waiting for the group to begin.
“I was talking to my therapist, Dawn, the other day,” Mara said, “telling her how I’m having all this old crap from my past kicked up. Not the relationship and sin stuff I was talking about at the beach, but junk from my childhood. Girls teasing and rejecting me and making my life absolutely miserable. I guess I’d just been trying to stuff it all down. I didn’t want to think about it, you know? And then when I did think about it, I kept telling myself that it shouldn’t be a big deal and that I shouldn’t still feel angry and upset about it because it happened . . . when? Like forty years ago? More than forty. It’s crazy. Sometimes I feel like I’m stuck at eight or nine years old.”
Meg nodded. “I was talking with Katherine about the same kind of thing this week, saying that I still hear my mother’s voice inside my head, telling me to just get over the pain. And then Katherine told me that God never says, ‘Get over it.’ God says, ‘Give it to me.’”
“Oooh . . . that’s good,” Mara said, reaching for her notebook.
“It sounds like you’ve got some things to grieve, Mara,” Hannah said. She tried hard to ignore the pestering internal voice that was defying her to take her own advice. “It’s not a small thing to be rejected as a child. That can have some pretty significant consequences into adulthood, affecting how we see ourselves and how we see God.”
“I know. You’re right. Dawn and I talked a long time about how I need to forgive those girls, even though they never apologized. They probably never even realized how much they hurt me. But I still need to make the decision to let them go with God’s help because otherwise they just stay hooked to me, you know? And I sure don’t need to be lugging around that extra weight. So I’ve been praying about that the past couple of days.”
“It’s wonderful you’re letting go of so many things,” said Meg. “I’m really proud of you, Mara.”
Mara smiled. “Thanks. I feel like I’m traveling more ‘freely and lightly,’ like we talked about at the beginning of the group, right? I’ve actually started writing some letters—not anything I’ll send, obviously, because I don’t have a clue whe
re Kristie and the others are. And frankly, I’m not interested in tracking them down. But Dawn suggested I write letters and name exactly what they did to hurt me so that I know what I’m forgiving. And that’s been helpful. Not easy, though. I’ve been crying a lot just remembering the details, but I feel like God is setting me free. It’s good.”
Mara reached into her bag and rummaged around. “By the way,” she went on, “I picked up some info on my way in about all the different prayer and spiritual growth stuff they do around here. I was thinking maybe we could sign up for another group together sometime.”
“That would be great!” Meg said, studying the pamphlets. “Look at this— Katherine is leading a pilgrimage to the Holy Land next year. Have you ever been there, Hannah?”
Hannah shook her head. “No. I always wanted to and never had the opportunity.”
“Well, you’ve got plenty of opportunity now, girlfriend!” Mara exclaimed. “You should do it!”
“I think so too, Hannah,” Meg said. “What a wonderful way to spend some of your sabbatical!”
Hannah’s thoughts began to whirl. What if?
She had spent years looking longingly at photographs of the places where Jesus had walked. What if the culmination of her nine-month interior journey were an actual pilgrimage?
Meg and Mara were right. There was nothing to prevent her from going—absolutely no hindrances. Years of disciplined frugality meant there was money to pay for a trip, and a trip like that would certainly enhance her teaching when she returned to Westminster.
As Hannah read the paragraph describing the three-week trip in May, her heart began to race. She hardly even heard Katherine invite people to take their seats.
She was imagining herself walking in the footsteps of Jesus.
11
Lightening the Load
The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness—on them light has shined. . . . For the yoke of their burden, and the bar across their shoulders, the rod of their oppressor, you have broken.
Isaiah 9:2, 4
Confession
When Charissa arrived at the New Hope Center half an hour late, she made her way to the back corner table as inconspicuously as possible. “Sorry,” she mouthed to the others, removing her laptop from its case.
“You okay?” Mara whispered.
Charissa nodded and pulled down the rim of her baseball cap to cover most of her face.
“It’s always a gift when the Spirit shines the light of truth into the dark corners of our lives,” Katherine was saying. “It’s mercy when God reveals areas of blindness to us. God never shows us these things to condemn us, but to free us. The Lord gently coaxes us out of hiding so that he can heal and restore us.”
Charissa leaned forward, unsure if her nausea was spiritual or hormonal.
Katherine said, “Years ago I was telling a group of friends about someone who had criticized me—unjustly, I thought—and I was upset about it. I was angry, defensive, and bitter, and I was looking for people to sympathize with me. My friends were all very sympathetic and nurturing, affirming my right to be angry. Except for Sheri. Sheri listened carefully and then said to me, ‘Katherine, I’m hearing a lot of sin in your response. Maybe God is inviting you to look at that.’ I was stunned. I hadn’t expected to be confronted with sin. At first I was hurt and offended. But as I prayed it through, I realized Sheri had discerned the situation correctly. God was asking me to examine myself, and Sheri was doing the loving thing by pointing out cancer in my own spirit. She didn’t point out my sin to shame me. She wanted to help me be free. She loved me enough to speak the truth into my life—truth I needed to hear.
“Friends, there’s such freedom in being able to say, ‘Yes, that’s my sin. And yes, I have a Savior.’ No need to hide. No need to be defensive. No need to be ashamed. No need to carry the burden of trying to be perfect. We have freedom to confess what’s true about ourselves and receive God’s grace.”
Spiritual. Charissa’s impulse to be sick was definitely spiritual.
Of all the topics Katherine could have presented, why sin and confession? Why? If she’d had a syllabus, Charissa would not have come. If she’d known they would be inviting God to reveal more areas of captivity, sin, and resistance, she would have stayed home. The only reason she’d even come to the group was because it gave her an excuse to be away from the apartment.
She should have gone to Castleton Park to power walk a couple of miles. But no—she didn’t have the energy to work up a sweat. Besides. Ever since she discovered she was pregnant, she saw pregnant women everywhere: glowing, happy pregnant women pushing shopping carts up and down supermarket aisles, standing in line at the bakery, walking rainy day laps at the mall, ordering decaf lattes at Starbucks. Castleton Park was a gathering place for the smiling sorority of mothers-to-be, and Charissa didn’t want to join them.
Maybe she should have gone over to campus for a while. There were no happy, smiling pregnant women there. But she didn’t want to risk bumping into Dr. Allen.
She sighed slowly, cradling her chin in her hands.
“I’m going to give you some extended time for prayerful self-examination and confession today,” Katherine said, passing around some handouts. “Let me be clear that when we’re talking about self-examination, we’re not talking about self-scrutiny for the sake of perfecting ourselves. Self-examination isn’t about being perfect. It’s about listening and responding to the Spirit. It’s about allowing God to reveal where we are hiding and resisting his love so that we can come out from hiding to receive grace and mercy and wholeness. This isn’t about beating ourselves up, and it’s not an invitation to obsessive introspection. We can’t make ourselves whole or holy. That’s the Spirit’s work. Our work is simply to cooperate with the Spirit by saying yes to God’s movement in our lives.
“Remember, it’s a gift when the Holy Spirit exposes areas of darkness, captivity, and sin. When you can actually see the ugliness, it’s because the light has come, revealing what was already there. So ask for the courage to be uncomfortable, uneasy, and provoked so you can confess and release these things. The Lord is full of compassion and love for you. God wants to reveal truth so that the truth sets you free. Don’t be afraid. The Lord God is with you, walking with you. May you have ears to hear the Spirit’s gentle voice.”
Charissa didn’t want to have ears to hear, and she was tired of seeing her sin. She already knew her sin—some of it, anyway—and she didn’t want light shining into any other dark corners of her toxic waste container.
She and John still weren’t speaking beyond minimally necessary syllables. She couldn’t bear to be with him. She couldn’t bear the pained and wounded expression on his face every time he looked at her. She was still too consumed with her own grief to consider the sorrow she had caused him. And though she knew she was only making things worse by refusing to communicate, she couldn’t help herself. She didn’t trust what she might say.
Shutting her eyes, she pulled her cap even lower over her face, hoping the others would think she was deep in prayer.
Sacred Journey, New Hope Retreat Center
Session Five: Self-Examination and Confession
Katherine Rhodes, Facilitator
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Read the following text from Genesis 3:1-9 slowly and prayerfully. Then journal your responses to the questions below.
Now the serpent was more crafty than any other wild animal that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God say, ‘You shall not eat from any tree in the garden’?” The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden; but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, nor shall you touch it, or you shall die.’” But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not die; for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate.
Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves. They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, and said to him, “Where are you?”
In what ways have your “eyes been opened” to your sin? What do you see about yourself? How do you feel about what you see?
With what tone of voice do you hear God ask the question, “Where are you?” Why do you think you hear God that way?
What fig leaves have you fashioned for yourself? What are you hiding from God? From others? From yourself? What keeps you from coming out from hiding?
James 5:16 reads, “Therefore confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed.” If you could be convinced of unconditional love and acceptance, what burdens of sin, temptation, regret, and shame would you confess to someone else?
David prayed, “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my thoughts” (Psalm 139:23). Do you trust God to search and know you, revealing your sin? Why or why not? What does your longing or resistance show you about your life with God right now?
A Story about the Spiritual Journey Page 32