God’s Boundless Love
FROM TL1 GRADUATE & NURSE, PATTI, ON HER EXPERIENCE AS A PARTICIPANT
I don’t remember how I first heard of PAX, but it came across my path and got my attention. I believe things are never random with God and so curiosity led me to ask questions. I had observed that on the whole people including myself, had become poor listeners. I attribute it to all the noise in our world, the pace of life, the internet. It’s hard to go anywhere these days without a television in the background, or music playing and if you are unfortunate enough to drive in the city then its beeping horns and blaring sirens. Our minds are bombarded with information from every direction and it’s getting more difficult to focus. It’s hard to find quiet space or even hear the person talking to us from across the table.
I am a nurse by profession and so I learned to be an observer and tried to be a listener, but listening took time, not something I had an abundance of. I had to be able to assess my patients on a medical surgical floor quickly. Did they seem alert, engaged? Were they breathing calmly? Were they in pain? How was their color? When I asked my patients questions their answers did not always match my observations, so it required me to dig a little deeper, to offer them an open door to being vulnerable and trusting me, but lack of time limited me. I loved my work, and I loved that my patients knew that they were seen and heard. I wanted more.
It seems this is a message that God has been giving me for some time now. In Liberia I served on the hospital ship the Africa Mercy, and the needs there were overwhelming. So much poverty and lines of people hoping to see a doctor who would approve them for surgery to remove a tumor, to correct a facial deformity, repair a two-year-old broken bone, to treat badly burned faces and arms. As I tried to make sense of it I remember clearly the whisper of God to see the one in front of me. I believe God has given me a gift to see and observe, but I wanted to listen and hear, to grow in that, and to take that skill beyond the walls of a hospital and into the lives of my loved ones and my community.
Just as I am in my profession and personal life, learning to see and hear others, I am also learning that God wants to see and hear me. I know that God can speak in the midst of noise, chaos and confusion yet this class has reinforced for me the lifeline that regular times of quieting myself before him offers. He speaks into those places only He sees. Places of shame. Places that hold lies we have believed about ourselves. Places that need healing. I have experienced that healing more often since being in the class. When I make time to listen for Him, I hear Him. His whispers touch me profoundly and often in places I was not even aware of.
Being part of the Transformational Listening class has impacted my daily regimen and has changed how I view life and myself. I have been a morning prayer time person for a while, but now I protect my time in that place with a fierceness. I know how much I look forward to prayer, reading, and worship each morning. I also know in a deeper way that God looks forward to it and loves that I want to meet with him. I believe He waits with anticipation. Wow! Sometimes I still can’t get my head around that, that God, the God of the universe waits with anticipation for me! But I know that it’s true.
Being in the TL1 cohort has impacted me and the community I am in. I have learned that other’s stories need to be heard and that in making space for them I become more mindful of how God has woven different things into their lives and what He may be saying through them. I have felt more connected to the others in my cohort and when I see them now, I look at them with greater love and understanding.
We also have done significant reading by several authors who opened their world to us, one I was unfamiliar with, and this has taken me closer to the heart of Jesus. I don’t think I will ever look at the world the same.
I have known that God has given us as believers the gift of discernment and yet I don’t think I understood it fully. Now I know that there are many ways we can discern God’s will, that it is a process we need to go through so that we can choose the path that allows us to continue in loving God.
I have learned other ways to pray. God inspires our creativity in prayer. I love that we can connect with Him differently and that He allows us the freedom to be who He has created us to be in our times of worship.
I have been reminded again and again during these nine months that His love is boundless. Immeasurable. The love of God for me is secure. It is rooted in who He is. He not only sees me, but He also knows me intimately. He hears me. I can trust Him with all of it.
And because of His great love I can risk being heard and I can desire to hear others. And we can quiet the noise as we find God in the silence and bring healing to our world.
Ready for your own TL1 experience? Join an upcoming cohort!