Lately, I’d been feeling that my life was rather compartmentalized.  I didn’t feel that I allowed God equal access to all aspects of my life, and this was beginning to bother me.  I had been spending time with a meditation book by Joyce Rupp which was encouraging solitude.  Joyce had written that solitude helps us to see with greater clarity what needs to be emptied and what needs to be received.  I was beginning to feel a desire to spend some time alone on retreat.  Time spent apart in a quiet place, far from my usual routine may give me clarity and direction. 

I found a Retreat House where I could have a private retreat, and a priest would be available to me all three days.

Friday night I presented myself to the priest with open hands and open heart; hopeful that God would speak to me.  Much to my surprise, very shortly the focus of our conversation turned to my adult Autistic son.  I spoke of how, through the years I have had to take the ongoing pain and grief of having an Autistic child and put it in a mental box so as not to let it contaminate the rest of my life.  Father Bob said that I compartmentalize God as well.  That there is an old part of me that is still afraid and angry at God for allowing all the heartache that my son’s disability had caused our family. 

I was surprised that Fr. Bob could identify this so clearly.  ”I don’t get it myself,” I said to him.  “I stopped blaming God for Matt a long time ago.  I’m a Christian.  I know that God is love–he didn’t create Matt’s Autism.  I even got over the stumbling stone of accepting that God did allow Matt to be autistic, and that ultimately, good will come out of our pain . . . but I must confess that there still is a part of me that can’t seem to let go of being mad.  And afraid.  And I don’t get it.  I want to let go of it . . . but I can’t.”

We talked of many things that Friday night.  And I walked, and journaled and talked to God.  The next day after a long walk I met with Fr. Bob again and shared my journaling.  He said that I spend a lot of time thinking about God.  It was his feeling that I needed to spend some more time trusting God.  He gave me some things to read and to think about. 

I took another walk through the woods and had a conversation with God in that beautiful place.  I felt that God was saying to me,  “I love you.  I created you.  I knew you when you grew in your mother’s womb.  Before anyone knew there was a you,  I knew you.  I had a plan for you . . .

“And I love Matt.  I created him.  I knew him when he grew in your womb.  Before anyone knew there was  a Matt,  I knew him.  I had a plan for him . . .

“You have developed a habit  of being mad at Me for Matt.  The time has come for you to lay that habit to rest.  The time for anger is over.  Now is the time for trust.”

 

I have been blessed by the writings of Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D.  The book that I am currently reading (for the second time) is called “Kitchen Table Wisdom, Stories that Heal”.  Rachel sees life as a mystery to be lived.  She encourages us to have faith that there is an answer that will come in time.  That we are to relax around Mystery and to wait until wisdom is received.  And that when wisdom is received, we will never see things in the old way again.  

This is what happened to me that day in the woods when God told me that my anger at Him was a habit.  My son was born years before I was born again in Christ.  I had many years to bear the pain and the struggle alone.  Many years before I discovered the love and mercy of God.  And habits can become so familiar that we don’t even notice we have them, and like Paul, we “do the thing we do not want to do”.

When God told me that my attitude was a habit, it all made sense.  There is no understanding a habit.  There is no reasoning with it.  There is only awareness of the habit.  I had a little funeral for my habit that weekend on retreat.  On a piece of paper I wrote out my confession of my habit of sin, arrogance, anger and lack of trust toward God.  I went into a garden and buried my confession at the feet of a statue of Jesus.  And when I left that garden I left that habit.

Suffering, illness, is a mystery.  Healing is a mystery.  The older I get, the more content I am to live with Mystery