Touched by an Angel

As I sat cradling her head while she wept lamenting a part of her life that was ending, a gentle voice whispered in my ear as it has done so many times.  "Tell her how strong she is, share with her that only those who are infinitely powerful receive the hardest lessons.  Tell her."     As the words hung in the air between us, a palpable force electric with life, the dam broke allowing the torrent of emotion and pain to flow free as tears.  "I don't feel powerful."  She responded meekly.  "I understand.  Will you allow me to hold that vision of you as a powerful being in my heart until you are ready to see it yourself?  I believe in you."

I love these moments, not because I feel powerful or because I enjoy the misery of others.  I feel so profoundly honored that I am trusted with this most dark and vulnerable space.  This deeply human place that plucks a chord within us all.  It is my opportunity to pay a gift forward many times over; it reminds me when I felt I was dangling at the end of a rope and Spirit reeled me in.

The year was 1999, I was 33 in what I have come to call my "year of jesus."  Not because of some weird and awkward conversion (that would be 6th grade and a story for another time) it had more of a "why hast thou forsaken me?" flavor.  1999 was the year I, or who I had known to be me, began to unravel. My engagement was abruptly and unexpectedly broken and I was asked to leave the home I had immersed 2 years of my life into.  I had thought I was "done."  You know that program, the "I'll be able to relax and just live my life once I'm married" program.  The "I'll finally be able to exhale once I'm married" program.  Yeah, that.  That's where I was standing in the midst of a steaming pile of shattered programming; when I was moved beyond this body, beyond this world…I call it my "Touched by an Angel" moment.

Earlier in the day, I had called the plumber because our tub needed service.  So, here I was standing in the bathroom with the Roto Rooter man and things were not going well.  He was having a bad day and I, well, I was busy projecting my steaming pile right at him when he stopped and took a breath and asked "can we start over?  It appears we are both having a really bad day."  He held out his hand for me to shake and we introduced ourselves again.  Then he asked "are you alright?"  Some unreasonable force possessed me in that moment as I began to bear my soul to this man, a complete stranger.  He listened intently (do they teach therapeutic listening in plumbing school?) and then asked me "do you believe in god?"  "Yes" I replied.  "Then you must know that he has something so much better lined up for you."  I swear he had the glowing aura behind him when he said it, he lit up just like in the show…

I wept.   Tears of recognition, of release swept through me with his words.  In that moment I was reminded of who I was, who I am.  His words jolted me out of my ego's pity party and back to the remembrance that I am OK.  This is not the end, this is the beginning.  A wonderful opportunity.  I never looked back.

A wonderful opportunity.  That is what my heart held for my client today.  That this loss she is experiencing is not the end of her life but the beginning of a new and wonderful adventure.  The chance to begin again.  Awakening like the first crocus of spring rising victoriously from the snow, flocks of robins returning to the thawed and fertile earth, sap rising salaciously within the trees their arms outstretched to the heavens…

This, the second Spring of your life, I hold in my heart for you.

xo Maria

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