A little while ago, I was working on a drawing for a friend for confirmation. I realized this would be a good time to share a bit of my process. I’m sure professionally trained artists may wince a bit. Still, outside of the regular school curriculum, I believe fashion design was the only course I ever took that covered drawing techniques.
Despite this, I’ve always loved to draw and practiced consistently throughout my life. I think I’d be a better artist if I didn’t lose motor function from neurological damage due to celiac disease. In some ways, that challenge makes the art I am capable of more special. I don’t get to rest on my abilities; I have to work at it, and relearn if I have accidental gluten exposure. Thankfully, that doesn’t happen too often, but a couple of times a year presents challenges (can’t escape the word filled with wheat products).
When I draw, I tend to lay out the general outline of the subject. After that, I will sketch in detail to see tentatively if I like how it will look. From there, it’s erase and refine… on repeat. This particular design, called “Confirmation,” was drawn with graphite and pencil crayon. I keep the main subjects in grey to emphasize the unseen reality of the Holy Spirit descending during this sacrament. It was very fun to draw! You can find prints on Redbubble if you are interested.
I was having a conversation with a friend recently, who has been going through many many trials, all converging at once. She was feeling distressed, with good reason, but also found deep confusion over why God was allowing this timing.
In these circumstances it may seem like God is leaving you standing with no direction, or that you are being left to solve everything on your own. In my experience, counterintuitively, these circumstances are actually always an invitation.
An invitation? To chaos and pain? Well, no, an invitation to go deeper. Deeper into your relationship with Him, your relationship with yourself, and your relationship with others.
Diving Deep
Going through life, there are always situations that are difficult and distressing, but they don’t necessarily mean you will experience an overwhelming level of emotions. When life events stir up a huge cascade of emotions inside, there are generally 2 main causes.
You do not have a FELT sense of having enough support from your internal resources or social support network.
The big emotions were already there inside, and you are in a situation that is poking at the places you did not receive love, support, and safety throughout your life.
An invitation
This is where the invitation comes in. In the first example, if you are in a difficult situation without feeling supported- it’s time to reach out and get help. That is no easy task, because it may not feel safe to do so, but you would be surprised how many people have lived through similar situations and who may have an attentive ear. You are not alone in the journey, others are traveling through the storms like you.
If your heart is being flooded by the intensity of your past experiences, that’s where you are being invited deeper into a relationship with God and yourself. Those places that you have lived through hardships that were held onto are usually there because the original experience was like scenario 1. You didn’t have the external connections necessary for post-traumatic growth. These are the places that we protect ourselves from the most inside, the places of trauma–big “T” and little “t” alike. Truly, these are the places that God wants to come into for healing and communion. These are the places we shut everyone out from, ourselves, others, and God alike.
But why?
Can’t he just take it all away? Make it better? Of course, but only with an invitation in, entering into the worst of it freely. God allows the circumstances of our lives to be invitations to self-reflection and awareness of the pains that we hold inside our hearts so that we can invite Him in on our own time to finally meet those unmet needs. We are made with such dignity that God will not tread freely through our hearts but will wait patiently until we are ready to say yes.
If life is getting too much, will you open the door?
As we come to the end of January, I can’t help but reflect on the upcoming anniversary that I don’t think I could ever have anticipated until it happened. 4 years ago, this February 21, God healed me in a powerful and miraculous way. It was unexpected, unanticipated and wholly life changing.
You see, I have celiac disease that went undiagnosed until I was 20, which had by then wreaked havoc on my system. Within a year of diagnosis I was diagnosed with co-morbid conditions and complications that at the time were deemed permanent. The decade of life proclaimed as the greatest time for self discovery and exploration was instead forecast to be marked with severe illness, that was incurable. I was found to have fibromyalgia and inflammatory arthritis in every single joint in my body. I have a lesion in my cerebellum that my neurologist says is caused by celiac disease and I was having migraines 25+ days of the month, among other issues. It was a pretty terrible time, though God’s grace was abundant as he led me to conversion to the Catholic church.
For years I did everything I could to read the latest research, which my doctor was fully supportive of as she herself promoted patient self-advocacy. I learned to balance pushing forward in exercise with avoiding excessive flare ups that would last for months. Back then gluten free options tasted, as a friend once brilliantly said, “like rice and sadness”, but I was making the most of the situation. I offered my pain in union with Christ’s cross, and truthfully never thought to ask for my own healing. I was too focused on learning natural remedies that actually helped when the medications caused strange and often disorienting side effects.
When you least expect it…
Then, it happened when I least expected it. I went to the Tuesday night adoration evening at our local parish, and sitting in front of the monstrance I was captivated. It is not possible to put it into words that would accurately describe the experience, but it was as though the monstrance was simultaneously standing on the altar but super imposed with the infant Jesus in the manger and the adult Jesus on the cross. I was transfixed on this scene when I heard in my soul the very clear message that God was answering my husband’s prayers and was healing the permanent conditions right then and there. I understood that anything left over would be curable over time, with some effort.
You see, even though I hadn’t been praying for my own healing, my husband had been praying a raw and honest prayer for 7 years. He had been agnostic when we met, though he couldn’t deny the impact my relationship with God had, so he prayed “God, if you are real, heal her”. I had gone into the church with labored breath, ungraceful movements constricted by arthritic joints, and left painless walking with ease. My close friend saw the difference immediately when we got up to leave at the end of the holy hour, and asked what happened. I shared it, delighted.
The healing journey continues…
I still struggle with celiac disease, though the reactions are no where near as bad or long lasting, and a few conditions that are treatable (like the most recent discovery of sleep apnea and nocturnal hypoxemia), but since that day I have been changed and capable of so much more than I imagined. Sometimes God heals us when we least expect it. Never lose hope, never give up faith, God knows what we need and when we need it. Sometimes it takes time. In my case, 7 years of my husband petitioning God on my behalf, without my knowing… but God will act, right when the time is ripe.
