2008 book review

When the heart waits by Sue Monk Kidd has come to me at the perfect time, not for one second did I doubt that it would. I have been struggling with the voice inside me that keeps telling me to just be patient and wait, it'll come...
I have been feeling a lot like the caterpillar turning into the butterfly. Thank God, I have survived the caterpillar life, I even made it through the part where I was convinced my life was over (as I knew it). It appears I am in the most important "stage" of the transformation.... the cocoon. It is my job to be patient, silent  and keep my faith. This book uses the butterfly as a point of relation to what is really going on and it also puts it God into perspective. I'm going to type out some of the parts that I have highlighted! Hope all is well for you and yours, and I hope that you are spending a lot of time laughing, laughing just makes everything better, doesn't it?  xoxoxo
Chapter one, the long way round: "Midway this way of life we're bound upon, I woke to find myself in a dark wood, Where the right road was wholly lost and gone.... It is so bitter it goes nigh to death".... Dante
"Patience is everything" Rainer Maria Rilke
The sacred intent of life, of God-to move us continuously toward growth, toward recovering all that is lost and orphaned within us and restoring the divine image imprinted on our soul.
Entering the question: To embark on this task involves a deep and profound movement of soul that takes us from an identification with the collective "they" to a discovery of the individual "I," and finally, as we shall eventually see, to an embracing of the compassionate "we."
In our youth we set up inner myths and stories to live by, but around the midlife juncture these patterns begin to crumble. It feels to us like a collapsing of all that is, but it's a holy quaking. "When order crumbles," writes John Shea, "Mystery rises."
"If you think God leads you only beside still waters, think again. God will also lead you beside turbulent waters. If you have the courage to enter, you'll think you're drowning. But actually you're being churned into something new. It's okay, dive in."
Chapter Two "Quickaholic Spirituality"
This chapter talks a lot about how our society as a whole has become a fast-paced, demanding world. We want everything NOW, fast food, microwaves, internet, space travel.... When it comes to your soul and spirituality, time  is not involved.
Waiting being the rawest kind of agony.... We want God to simply take away the masks we have spent a life time creating. We want Him to jump in and find the lost and neglected parts, to solve all our problems, heal wounds, alleviate the inexplicable sense of discontent and pain.... NOW! or at least very soon : )
"I hope you'll hear what I'm about to tell you. I hope you'll hear it all the way down to your toes. When you're waiting, you're not doing nothing. You're doing the most important something there is. You're allowing your soul to grow up. if you can't be still and wait, you can't become what God created you to be."
A lot of us have spent our lives in shortcut religion. we haven't been willing to face the fact that while the spiritual journey is joyous and full, it's also long and hard. It asks much-too much sometimes.
To grow up spiritually means having growing pains in the darkest part of the night.
We seem to have focused so much on exuberant beginnings and victorious ending that we've forgotten about the slow, sometimes tortuous, unraveling of God's grace that takes place in the "middle places" How did we ever get the idea that God would supply us on demand with quick fixes, that God is merely a rescuer and not a midwife?
That's all for now folks.... Let me know what you think? where are you in your journey?  This awakening is much easier if you have a companion, a friend, a soul mate... Someone to share your experience with, to lean on, to hold up... Usually you find a friend like this in the most unusual place, somewhere you never even thought to look.  A big shout out to my "soul mates".... Thank You, from the very depths of my soul.
xoxoxo and laughs!
justina