“Shards of My Soul” — perhaps that’s a better title for a soap opera than for a column?
It came to me at four in the morning though (as my best ideas typically do), and my gut tells me it expresses who I am.
Perhaps of greater significance, the editor who offered me the privilege to write on a regular basis didn’t veto the notion, so here we are.
Most of us think of a shard as a piece of broken glass.
Webster defines “shard” as “a fragment of a brittle substance,” and Cambridge states it is “a sharp broken piece of a hard substance.”
“Brittle” . . . “hard” . . . allow me to throw in “fragile” . . . each has at least temporarily fit my soul like Cinderella’s slipper — depending on the crisis at hand.
While I don’t really see myself as a drama queen, I do tend to feel things very deeply — to the bottom of my soul I suppose you could say.
Incredibly romantic as that sounds, in truth, it’s the original two-edged sword: Joys can be blissful, but trials can be eviscerating. In this context, I’m speaking of them strictly on an earthly level.
Yet there’s a much bigger context in which I attempt to live my life: On a spiritual level and with the eyes of faith.
Through this lens, His “signs” are around almost every corner, and virtually everything has the Hand of God in it in some way.
Badger and Packer football outcomes excepted here but only if it’s not the post-season playoffs.
The great thing about this perpetual skyward gaze is that it has slowly trained me to see those blissful joys as directly from His Hand, and a knee-jerk reaction of praise and thanksgiving has grown in me over time.
The downside of this mindset is that it has often rendered me prey to taking those eviscerating trials very personally.
By the latter, I do NOT mean that I’ve seen them as Abba willfully inflicting pain upon me, though I did spend a good number of years considering them to be nothing short of punishment, abandonment, or some lethal combination thereof.
I don’t think I’m alone in that natural human reaction, but it is error, of course. God is only love and goodness, and we are His beloved always, even when the “I’m precious to Him” vibe is
completely elusive.
What I do mean is that the personal nature of this pain has stemmed from the recognition that nothing happens without His permissive will, including the ugly stuff.
He could lift any particular cross from me — if He would only choose to do so. His decision not to do so (which I am typically at a loss to understand), is what has so often left my heart and soul in shards over the years.
Newsflash to self:
Maybe the whole point is that I need to get over the desire to always understand it.
Sometimes I think life would be much easier on me if I could just be an emotionally middle-of-the-road kind of gal.
At all times, I am certain life would be easier on me if I could train my stubborn will to stop questioning and just resign itself.
I don’t think I could ever change my stripes where the former is concerned, but thanks to never-ending grace, I have made some progress on the latter.
And I CAN say that,
despite the propensity to easily shatter, my soul never was as hardened as my will.
Even during the worst of times, I never walked away from Him, from the sacraments, from my faith. Not once.
Thanks truly be to God, for if I had, who knows where I might be right now.
Yes, I’m learning (ever so slowly) that it all comes down to these eternal tenets: Surrendering to His will and aligning our hearts with His
. . . even when you’re inclined to fight it with every fiber of your being.
I’m also discovering that the real challenge is to move beyond just lip service, and do that surrendering alignment without: . . . anger; . . . resentment; . . . emotional, mental, and spiritual heartbreak.
To me, clearing those hurdles is step one.
And as if that isn’t difficult enough, I’m sorry to report that I believe there’s a step two: Giving yourself over to His will with: . . . complete trust; . . . peace of mind and heart; . . . sacrificial love deep enough to transform it into a joy.
Am I there yet?
The mere question elicits the best of belly laughs; I’d say I’m more like light years away.
Do I have a secret sauce recipe for getting to this place?
Trust me, if I did, it would have been bottled and ever-at-the-ready in my pantry years ago.
However, I do have a few epiphanies that have come to me over the years, scarred and bloody though their discovery processes often were.
If the reader will indulge me, I’ll do my best to share those in the months ahead — one shard at a time.
Maria Burns is a lifelong Catholic and writer who lives in Madison.