Listening to the Voice Within
What is holding you back from feeling worthy enough to let your own light shine a little brighter, believe in yourself a little more, and share more of yourself with others?
Or even asking for your very own miracle?
-The Miracle Collectors
One of the unanticipated benefits of grandchildren is an excuse to watch the new Pixar and Disney movies. They remind us of the enchantment of make-believe and often hold important messages for living our lives. My three-year-old grandson Leo’s favorite film at the moment is Luca, the story of two young “sea monsters” who transform into boys on land and want to live in the human world. In the movie the two young boys are aware of the voice of Bruno – that voice within all of us that belittles us and tells us all the things we cannot do. We often talk about letting our light shine, well Bruno is the opposite. Fortunately, the fact is we all have another voice inside us, the one that tells us what we might be able to do, what we should do, what we could do if we but tried. Sometimes I think that voice, rather than being Jiminy Cricket from the movies of my youth, may be the voice of God nudging us in a particular way for a particular reason. I certainly felt that in my own miracle journey, as I traveled the road of our son’s unexpected near fatal cardiac condition so many years ago.
I was reminded of this voice this week when I got a call from one of the naturalist guides we had on a recent trip to the Galapagos Islands. She wanted to share her miracle story and felt her life had been saved by listening to the voice of God within her. She wasn’t sure why she felt compelled to go to the new medical clinic on her remote island home in the middle of the Pacific Ocean 600+ miles from the mainland. She said she thought it might be interesting. She was shocked when they found a large mass in her abdomen and told her to get to the mainland right away for additional testing. She had some bloodwork at the clinic but as we sometimes do, she put off going to the mainland. We are human after all and she had to get back to work – on a boat, in the middle of the world’s largest ocean. It wasn’t until the boat docked that she finally relented and flew to the mainland to complete the testing. There she had more tests and surgery was scheduled within 24 hours. The surgeon told her had she waited an additional few days she would have been dead from sepsis as the mass had already begun to implode and expel it’s dangerous bacteria. She still wonders what made her go to the clinic in the first place, she hadn’t felt ill, just felt a nudge that it was the right thing to do. She said it was a miracle and she wanted to share her story so that others would listen to the voice within as well.
Teilhard de Chardin tells us that we are not human beings having a spiritual experience, we are spiritual beings having a human one. It’s a reminder of the intricate relationship between the physical bodies that are entrusted to our care and our spiritual essence. No wonder then that we have these spiritual intuitions about the physical wellbeing of our bodies. The literature is full of cases of incidental findings that save someone’s life when they seek medical care for one benign issue and a life threatening one is serendipitously found. God works in mysterious ways as the nuns used to tell us. Perhaps our job is merely to pay attention and listen. (Joan)