I remember the day she came. We sat on the gazebo. She had just recovered an incident that had happened to her years before. She could report the details. From a clinical place it made sense to her.

And then there was the disconnect. She certainly could NOT feel anything about this incident. Not the pain and trauma during it, nor the grief that followed. Not the shame /guilt that had kept it hidden all these years. Not the loss that had happened and followed her, costing her relationships and intimacy throughout her life.

So, we sat. I remembered Job’s friends, and how very good they were in friendship to just set, and quiet with their friend in the place where words become useless and interruptions.

It was ten am, on a cloudless day in the Midwest. To the west and north, beyond the old oak, were the farm fields, expanses of land that were vibrant with life. To the south were the woods that rehearse how it was before man, and to the east lay the pond, a 3.34 surface acre of all-things-pond.

I wondered if the Healer would come on the wind. Or with the birds. Or in squirrel antics, or any of the other innumerable way he comes in his time. And I just sat with my friend. We all need someone who can hear the terrible and still want to be with us. I can do that. He has done that for me.

The bullfrogs began their chorus. It was an odd chorus for the morning, the song they make by taking turns with their sounds and rhythms. I watched as the first tear fell from the eyes of my friend. I knew then that the Healer had added his sound into the bullfrog chorus. He was infusing the comforts and permissions she needed to safely feel. I felt the pain come first, up and out, escorted by Wind to He-who-carried-all-pain-to-reconcile. Some trauma followed. Grief was mingled in. I watched as her brain and heart began to reconcile in the impossible place, but not without hope, because healer was there. Sometimes the privilege I have to witness his work in the hearts of men is beyond language.

She came stuck. She left free.

And I am undone again, as I remember, the power of the cross.