Note: On Tuesdays and some Sundays, you can find me at Your Daily Tripod, owned by my friend TonyD. A longer version of the post below appears there.
I had lunch recently with a spiritual mentor, a Catholic whose writing greatly inspires me. I shared with her my concern that my writing and speaking about the women saints sometimes becomes too dark, too much about their struggles: Murder. Rape. A lack of acceptance in their homes, their convents, or their communities.
Her counsel was that there’s always someone in the audience who’s going through something similar, whether the person realizes or acknowledges it or not. Then she went on to say, “Talk about the transformation. Talk about how God guided them 
through the struggle and beyond.”
It was good advice, advice that applies to us all, writer, painter, mother, father, sister, brother, friend. We all have dark places, as do those we love… and those whom we find difficult to love. Call them abysmal swamps if you will, as the writer put it in Psalm 69.
Those swamps may seem impossible from which to extricate ourselves. We feel so stuck, so persecuted, so put upon, that it seems there is no way out. But if we keep our souls, hearts, and eyes open, we may find freedom in the most unexpected of places and people. Surely, Moses’ mother when she put him in that basket among the reeds was beyond desperate. Her hope was that somehow, some way, someone would be able to help. She likely was shocked to find the benefactress would be the daughter of the very man who had condemned her son and all the other male Hebrew infants to death, a woman who realized the child was an Israelite… and rescued him anyway.
As with Moses, God sometimes provides us with transformation opportunities in the most unexpected of ways. He also will let us remain in the swamp if we prefer. The choice is ours.
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