Welcome to our weekend open forum. All caregivers are invited to submit whatever comments they would like about the experience of loving others. Click on Comments, below, to share your thoughts.
-Erie
Journal of Sacred Work
Caregivers have superpowers! Radical Loving Care illuminates the divine truth that caregiving is not just a job. It is Sacred Work.
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5 responses to “Days 235-237 – Open Forum”
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As life changes part of our growth comes from acceptance of life as it is….I share the following poem in a spirit of acceptance.
You Can’t Have It All by Barbara Ras
But you can have the fig tree and its fat leaves like clown hands gloved with green. You can have the touch of a single eleven-year-old finger
on your cheek, waking you at one a.m. to say the hamster is back.
You can have the purr of the cat and the soulful look of the black dog, the look that says, If I could I would bite every sorrow until it fled, and when it is August, you can have it August and abundantly so.
You can speak a foreign language, sometimes, and it can mean something. You can visit the marker on the grave where your father wept openly. You can’t bring back the dead, but you can have the words forgive and forget hold hands as if they meant to spend a lifetime together. And you can be grateful for makeup, the way it kisses your face, half spice, half amnesia, grateful for Mozart, his many notes racing one another towards joy, for towels sucking up the drops on your clean skin, and for deeper thirsts, for passion fruit, for saliva. You can have the dream, the dream of Egypt, the horses of Egypt and you riding in the hot sand. You can have your grandfather sitting on the side of your bed, at least for a while, you can have clouds and letters, the leaping of distances, and Indian food with yellow sauce like sunrise. You can’t count on grace to pick you out of a crowd
but here is your friend to teach you how to high jump, how to throw yourself over the bar, backwards,
until you learn about love, about sweet surrender, and here are periwinkles, buses that kneel, farms in the mind as real as Africa. And when adulthood fails you, you can still summon the memory of the black swan on the pond of your childhood, the rye bread with peanut butter and bananas your grandmother gave you while the rest of the family slept. There is the voice you can still summon at will, like your mother’s, it will always whisper, you can’t have it all, but there is this.LikeLike
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The last couple of days have seemed to be so challenging for me. It has been about testing my knowledge of nursing, use of my communication skills, and self-confidence in providing the best information for a family and patient that are struggling with the grieving process. I pray that the outcome in this situation of a young 31 yr. old female with end-stage liver disease and a five year old daughter whom she will leave behind will find peace in heart. I spent some time with her the other day for about two hours listening to her spill our her fears, go through about two dozen tissues as they were starting to fall off her lap, and talking about her daughter whom she absolutely cherishes and how she will do when she is gone. There was a moment when I felt a little helpless, the first time in a long-time. I don’t know if it was just a busy work week, lots of stuff going on trying to get the kids ready for back to school, and or that she was younger than me and with a child the age of my daughter. Anyhow, I just feel that I needed to express my feelings and this journal has provided me a safe forum to do so. So thank you for listening.
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Yvonne,
Thanks for sharing from your heart. My words all seem inadequate at this moment. I believe that your presence and ability to bear witness to her pain allowing it to flow forth in a river of tears was a great gift. A vulnerable place for both of you, especially when her daughter is the same age as your sweet Cloe. Yet you remained present to her. I hope you have a peace filled weekend. Thanks for sharing your Love so abundantly. May you feel Love’s blessings evelope you in comfort.
Love to you,
~lizLikeLike
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A prayer for a Sunday morning: Day 237
August 23rd.
Prayers of Adoration
I am always with you,
even when you are not able to feel me in your heart.
I love you always,
I surround you with my protecting love,
even when you occasionally forget me.
I listen to your problems,
if you are sincere and receptive, I give you solutions.
I hear your prayers and answer those which are in the best interest
of everyone in your life including, but not limited to, you.
I am the light and the thoughts in your mind,
I am the sight in your eyes,
I am the life in your body,
I am the feelings you feel in your heart.
I am always at work in your life for your greater good,
although you may not always believe this;
hopefully, your faith in me will grow constant.
you must realize:
“my will is whatever is happening in the present moment”.
within this moment you must think and act
with integrity, humility and courage,
you must trust in me,
and surrender your will to mine through acceptance.
if you continue to demonstrate acceptance,
integrity, humility, courage and trust,
you will discover the secret of opening your heart to my love.
the greater your faith in me
the more I am able fill your heart with my love.
it is I, who grants you the serenity to accept
the things you cannot change,
the courage to change the things you can
and the wisdom to know the difference.
eventually you will realize the samplings of love
I bestow on you through others
are purposefully designed to draw you closer to me.
it is only I, who loves you unconditionally,
I am an ever-flowing fountain of love, peace and joy,
I will never disappoint you; I will always be with you.
I mete out to you the exact amount of pain you cause others,
because I want you to be compassionate.
I want you to be able to give love and equally as important,
I want you to be able to receive love.
how else will you learn to love me?
how will you learn to accept my love?
the moment you realize the error of your ways,
the moment you sincerely regret the pain you cause others,
I forgive you; I nourish you with my tender mercies.
remember, I never stop loving you for you are my precious child.
god’s love – paul mastromarinoLikeLike
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God Bless you Liz for sharing your loving thoughtful poems on this forum ~
God Bless you Yvonne for sharing your time and being supportive to a young mother in her time of need ~
Both unselfish acts of kindness ~
Keep spreading the Love ~~
SusanLikeLike
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