Hello friends,
I just came back from the Mayo Clinic. We have one here in Jacksonville. I had a Covid test in preparation for surgery that I will be having tomorrow. I am having a total hip replacement of my right hip. 😬
I am feeling a bit nervous. But this should be a good thing. Going up and down the stairs in my house has been no fun.
I try to remember to be grateful. I am grateful to live in a time where this surgery is possible. I am grateful (and privileged too) to have the insurance to pay for it.
After today’s Covid test my husband and I took pictures on the grounds at Mayo.
It was a beautiful day in the 80’s, with blue skies and a breeze. I am so grateful for nature! Nature amazes me everyday. And it does feel so good to be outside, especially on such a beautiful day.

Anna shared a post about a week ago that I would like to respond to as it has triggered some powerful memories for me. Anna, you wrote about a friend who called you and was comforted by your conversation. You wrote that she had great faith and didn’t seem to be disturbed by doubts the way you sometimes are. I related to this, as my spirituality is rocked by doubts. Then I remembered a change that came over me many years ago and would like to share about this.

In my early thirties I had cancer and was feeling pretty bleak and disheartened. My faith in God was at a low point. A trusted friend of mine suggested that I speak to a couple that she was close to. They were evangelical ministers. I thought that was not a good idea, but my friend persuaded me to go. While speaking to them at their home they suggested many reasons to have faith. I disagreed with everything they said. On and on this continued until both they and I could see we were getting nowhere. Then they invited me to pray with them. I didn’t really want to do that either, but I said I would pray silently while they prayed aloud. So they started praying for me and I just listened. Then something shifted in me and I began to pray aloud with them. After leaving their home I felt completely different. Prayers and passages from the Bible that were meaningful to me started coming to me seemingly out of the blue. “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want…”. “ My Lord and my God, why have you forsaken me?” “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you…” “For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, now and forever, Amen. All day and evening I was flooded with prayers and Bible verses, some that I didn’t even realize I knew. This continued (not quite this intensely) throughout my year with cancer. I didn’t make a conscious decision on that day about what I believed and what I didn’t believe. I was just in a powerful flow. It just was. I didn’t feel doubts, I just felt my heart overflowing. The best that I can understand this, is that this was the Holy Spirit. Another person might call this being connected to all in the universe. But calling this the Holy Spirit feels right to me. Over the next year I had many powerful spiritual images and visualizations come to me, especially while lying down for a relaxation tape.

The cancer left me after a year, but my strong sense of spirituality stayed with me for several years. Then it gradually faded away. I thought it would come back. St. Augustine spoke of the dark night of the soul. He had his times of spiritual highs and lows, so I thought I was going through a low, and that intense feeling of fullness in my heart would return. But it hasn’t. I haven’t thought about that time of overflowing spirituality, and how it came about in a long time. I am grateful to Anna for bringing up the topic of doubts because that is what led me to remember and to think about the time in my life when my faith was very strong. So what am I to take away from this?

First of all, for me, a strong sense of faith is not a mental thing. My overthinking, sometimes catastrophizing mind is not the place to trust with my spirituality. I’m not against using common sense and being clear headed. I just think finding my spirituality may come more from from letting go, than from reasoning my way to spirituality. I think I may be on to something here and will continue to pursue this.
I am very glad to be thinking along these lines given that I am having surgery tomorrow. I feel hopeful about my faith, and I am feeling stronger. ♥️♥️♥️
I am so grateful for all of you, my friends, at this gratefulness site. I think grateful sea may also still be here with us. I think I feel her loving presence.
I wish much peace, contentment, joy, and ease to all.
With much love♥️♥️♥️
Mary