Week 5 - Entrusting myself to God/ Healing
Theme of the week
I see my life as it really is. In his own way, God is at work in my life. Everything that there is in my life, light and dark, can be entrusted to Him.
What I might wish to ask for
That my trust in God may grow
That I can entrust myself to Him.
That I may become intimate with God.
I place myself before God becoming aware that He is looking at me with unconditional love.
Music: Voor de zevende dag Huub Oosterhuis (For the seventh day)
Wek mijn zachtheid weer.
Geef mij terug de ogen van een kind.
Dat ik zie wat is,
En mij toevertrouw,
En het licht niet haat.
Awaken my gentleness once more.
Give me back the eyes of a child.
So that I see what there is,
And entrust myself,
And won’t hate the light.
Spotify links:
https://open.spotify.com/track/2b41wbDvtTwyxLhfvTd9Kp?si=7be01d9d42bb4409
https://open.spotify.com/track/2tpYf0VEMtdvfvEbIBXcNy?si=675c932854f947d4
YouTube links:
https://www.ignatiaansbidden.org/lied-de-zevende-dag/
Mark 9: 17-29
17 And one of the crowd answered him, “Teacher, I brought my son to you, for he has a dumb spirit; 18 and wherever it seizes him, it dashes him down; and he foams and grinds his teeth and becomes rigid; …..
The boy is being controlled by a dumb spirit. He can’t talk about what he is feeling deep within himself and, when he does try to express himself, no words come out but other sounds and he becomes stiff and hardened. The boy cannot talk about what is really disturbing him, about what has wounded him. That remains suppressed in his body and in that way controls his whole life. I look at this boy and also at myself: do I see something of him in me or something of me in him?
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…..and I asked your disciples to cast it out, and they were not able.” 19 And he answered them, “O faithless generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you? Bring him to me.” 20 And they brought the boy to him; and when the spirit saw him, immediately it convulsed the boy, and he fell on the ground and rolled about, foaming at the mouth. 21 And Jesus[d] asked his father, “How long has he had this?” And he said, “From childhood. 22 And it has often cast him into the fire and into the water, to destroy him; …..
To let Jesus himself look at your deepest wounds: that led to even more convulsions and tension in the boy. Have I also experienced that it sometimes seems easier to let the wounds be as they are rather than allow them to come to the surface to be examined, because then the pain sometimes becomes even worse?
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…..but if you can do anything, have pity on us and help us.” 23 And Jesus said to him, “If you can! All things are possible to him who believes.” 24 Immediately the father of the child cried out[e] and said, “I believe; help my unbelief!”
The boy can’t ask for help himself. His father does that for him. Do I recognize that? That I can examine my innermost wounds because someone else, out of love, led me there?
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25 And when Jesus saw that a crowd came running together, he rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, “You dumb and deaf spirit, I command you, come out of him, and never enter him again.” 26 And after crying out and convulsing him terribly, it came out, and the boy was like a corpse; so that most of them said, “He is dead.” 27 But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up, and he arose.
Jesus demands that the unclean spirit leaves the boy. That doesn’t happen easily, but eventually the tension leaves the boy’s body. Jesus takes the boy’s hand and lets him stand up. Looking at whatever is troubling me together with Jesus. With him by my side, with love, going through the physical and spiritual pain which is the price of allowing my deepest wounds to be healed. Can I let my gentleness return? It is not easy but it leads to new life. Have I ever had the courage to entrust myself in this way to Him or allowed Him to heal me? Or is this something I desire?
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