Gifts Of The Spirit

⁴ There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them.⁵ There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. ⁶ There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone it is the same God at work. 
I Cor.12:4-6

This is a very personal story.  It came in one of the lowest points in my life and, in the way of those, a point which I will always remember as the one from which my life was reframed forever.  A moment from which I started allowing myself to feel joy and to hold hope again after a longish, dark spell.  “Every disaster holds a blessing” was re-explained.  My heart cracked open and light came in.

A series of unfortunate events had me in a bad place.  I found myself a full-time caregiver to my mother.  Neither one of us was happy about the way the situation was unfolding.  She had had complications from surgery after a fall after an exhausting move after losing her husband and her sense of security…more, too much.  After nearly two months in hospital and rehab she came home to a strange house in a wheelchair with aphasia.  In my care. 

I had to quit the job I loved at the church at the beach and somehow try to make this strange house in this strange “hometown” of hers familiar and home to my unhappy, confused and resentful mother.  On top of being homesick and missing my family and friends, I was feeling abandoned by some of the really important people in my life who seemed to have no idea what I was coping with in this strange and unhappy role.  Extended family and non-family drama which Mom seemed to think I should be able to resolve or at least mediate kept me tied up in knots.  And then the thousand-year-flood came and swept away half the work I had done to get things right in this place.

I do not want to fail to recognize the many Angels, who came to our aid, my aid in this difficult season…”walking-around-Angels” I call them.  I was amazed and grateful for those people who did show up with help and answers when I was out of juice for the work I was doing.   I had promised Mom I would not leave her.   But a cloud of resentment hung over this house.   Some was mine, some was hers.  In spite of the many gifts of light,  I began to see only the dark, the losses, the hurts, the abandonment.  That is the way of depression.

One morning early it had me on my knees.  At that time I think I was still praying to the ether.  God, but nothing personal.

“God”, almost a curse, “I can’t keep doing this.  It’s too hard.  I just can’t go on serving her.”

Clear as a bell:  “You are not serving her.  You are serving ME.”

Never before had I received such a clear message of comfort from my Source.  Direct. To. Me.  I did not originate that thought.  I was not capable of it.

From that morning until now those words are as clear in me as when I first heard them.  We are still riding the waves in this strange house and there have been plenty of storms since and more work than I can do to keep us floating. The message from God through Spirit stays with me.  And my service is given with measures of joy, honor, humbleness, gratitude. 

It is my hope that this story will allow someone else to open to the voice within and bless you too with gifts of the Spirit. 

Onward and Upward!  Peace, Joy and Much Love, Lisa