The Role of Family in Spiritual Growth
What message/s am I to deliver?
What is trying to emerge through me, as me, from this situation?
How can my experience be the catalyst for others when I don’t know how this ends?
Sometimes a book title is all you need. The words on the cover grab you by the heart and won’t let you go. The Gift of Crisis is such a title.
Crisis? Oh yeah, that’s me. And it’s you, too. It’s everyone. Show me the person who hasn’t been swept into the riptide of crisis. But it’s the word Gift that made me open this book and, I must tell you, I opened it with a smile. I know this gift. I carry an armload of these gifts. Like Bridgitte Jackson-Buckley, I have faced a crisis or two or three. And each one, awful as it was at the time, handed me a gift to treasure for the rest of my life.
When you look at me, do you see an author? Radio host? How about a prayer artist or field guide in the mystic? I may be all those things, but look again, because when you look at me, you are looking at a poster child for the gifts of crisis. None of these lovely roles would ever have happened if I hadn’t first lived through, and learned from, one life-shattering trauma after another. I am who I am because crisis came calling.
On page one, here’s the most important thing I can tell you: It’s not a crisis. It’s a crossroads.
You can continue to walk the well-trod path of anger and blame. You know that road. You know that road all too well. You know how it feels and you know where it leads. Or you can turn your face directly into the wind and start walking down the unknown path, the one with no clear destination in sight.
If you do turn into the wind, here’s what will happen. You will discover that the answers you so desperately seek are not outside you—and never were. They are the only place they can be—inside. And your broken heart is the perfect crack through which you can begin to draw them out. You’ll start asking big, new questions—questions you’ve never considered. And you’ll start listening. At first, the voice will seem small and you may not know exactly what you’re hearing or who’s speaking to whom. But you if you persist, you and your loving wise voice will build a relationship that overflows with trust and love. Then one day, the strangest thing will happen. You will find yourself once more on your knees, but this time you will have fallen to the ground with tears of gratitude for the crisis that taught you how to live.
Janet Conner, author of Writing Down Your Soul, Soul Vows, Find Your Soul’s Purpose and more
It is 10:30 p.m. on a clear, cool Saturday night in spring 2003. I sit on the sofa in the family room at my parents’ house, folding warm clothes fresh out of the dryer. With the television blaring and the aroma of “Spring Delight” laundry freshener hovering in the air, I look at Dennis, who has fallen asleep in the recliner. He has been on alert since early this morning. Today is the day.
One by one I carefully fold pink blankets, yellow bibs, and light green burp cloths and place them into neatly arranged rows beside me on the sofa cushion. I look toward the laundry basket to make sure I have folded everything, and notice one light pink onesie laying on the rug beside my feet. These days leaning, walking, bending, getting up, and simply moving my belly around in the world is an effort. Long gone are the days of the cute basketball belly; my midsection has morphed into “globe” status. Before gravity gets the best of me, I lean to the side and quickly grab the onesie. I sit back on the sofa and, with arms outstretched, I hold the onesie in front of me. It can’t be more than 10 inches long. With my head slightly tilted, I quietly look at the onesie and imagine the delicate