Junk and Joy Journey

Psalm 23:4 “Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no evil; your rod and your staff-they comfort me.”

     Oh to live in the midst of joy and laughter all the days of my life.  Would it truly be bliss or rather an awakening that life has not fully yet been lived?  For some reason I was always a child filled with joy.  I was good at finding joy in the tears and laughter in the smallest of things.  At an early age I sought a relationship with God.  It’s how my life seemed to unfold.  Early on in my life I had peaked senses and was quite intuitive to the true nature of and people and things.  I could see behind the curtain that was drawn for the crowds.  My father and I used to watch Sanford and Son when I was young and we’d laugh together at Fred’s comments.  Fred Sanford, if I recall correctly, would say his junk was his treasure, people just didn’t see it like he did.  Surround by junk in his junk yard he would often remark, living in the junk was his heaven.  He was the king of his castle.  Are the trials or junk that happens in our life truly treasures?

     When I was in my thirties I lost by beloved father.  A short while later my mother fell ill and she passed ten years later.  We spent many years caring for them.  We spent many weeks, months, years in hospitals.  Having such a close and honorable relationship with my parents I suffered greatly.  I felt my soul in darkness.  The pain and suffering that can befall us can be unbearable. The world thrusts us forward to live whether we are prepared or not.  Like an empty vessel we meander and pick up pieces of life here and there.  We thirst greatly.  Losing those we love can be messy and junky.  Most people have suffered.  Even those we may think have such an amazing life, have probably suffered.  Trials and tribulations happen to all people.  How do we rise from the darkness to the light?  Is suffering to help us or to hurt us?

     In my healing of the heart I found my answers in the words of the Bible.   It has been a practice of mine to seek answers from the authoritative source.  I seek not for superficiality or mundane but instead thirst for everlasting and fulfilling truth.  As I read the passage that I had read many times it seemed to resonate with a more profound meaning.  I wrote it out.  I reread it.  I prayed on it’s meaning and wisdom.  Psalm 23 “The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want.  He makes me lie down in the green pastures; he leads me in the right paths for his names sake.”  Scripture saved my soul.  The more I read, prayed, attended masses, it healed my soul.  Although, my parents meant the world to me and my family, we all have a father in heaven that walks with us always.  “All the days of my life”.  Joy began to burn in my heart once more and possibly brighter than I could have imagined. It was only because I looked to the source of all joy.  The source of all peace.  The source of all eternal love.  God.

     Crosses that we bear can be so incredibly heavy and wrought with pain.  God reminds us when we take the “daily cross” he will redeem us.  In the movie “Letter to Juliet”, the grandmother says to the grandson, “Life is the messy bits”.  My Nonna in her last days when I was pregnant ; sad to the thought of losing her said, “Sweetheart, I had a wonderful life of faith, family and good food, now I have to make way for your child”.  God is always trying to heal us.  May we ponder many times before we succumb to that which is unhealthy and does not nourish.  Our souls and heart are worth far more than what the world has to offer us to heal it.  Bear our cross and we find our light in God.  Pretend it doesn’t exist or numb the pain to live in darkness and one will perish.   Let us see God in all people.  Let us see God in all things.  He awaits to bring us closer if we were far from Him.  He awaits to relieve us of pain and sin.  He awaits to cleanse us and purify us so that we can fulfill the destiny he has planned for us.  Seek Him in all times.  Offer God your pain or trial.

Peace and prayers,

Claudia

Our Nourished Soul