Diary of a Spiritual Directee - By Carolyn Officer
Diary of a Spiritual Directee
(During a Difficult Season)
In the following excerpts, Carolyn Officer shares reflections from her personal diary written during a difficult season of illness, despair, healing, and rediscovered hope. Together they offer an intimate glimpse into the role spiritual direction can play in helping us remain attentive to God’s presence amid life’s storms.
AUGUST 7
I saw my spiritual director today and before we even started, I knew that this was going to be challenging. I was on the edge, literally and metaphorically.
It didn’t take much for me to crumble, just lighting the candle brought tears to the surface. I opened up to my director because she offers me a safe space. She encouraged me to draw how I felt. I drew me as a little green boat, surrounded by giant angry waves. She suggested I name them – so I did – pain, isolation, loneliness, despair.
Then we talked about each one and what it meant for me. I cried buckets – sobbing until I thought I was out of tears and then sobbing more. This was me. This was my current reality, without hope, without life, without God, or so I thought.
My director asked me to choose a symbol for God and draw Him in my picture. I chose a yellow star, because sailors use stars to navigate and guide them. She then guided me in having a conversation with God, using the star as a tool.
It became more than a conversation or dialogue, as I felt God reaching out to embrace me in His arms. I also realised that He was there all along, even though I couldn’t see or feel Him. For a while I lost sight of God and it was my undoing.
She asked me to write a title for my picture – I called it ‘I am held in love’ as I had drawn yellow gold beams reaching down from the star and surrounding my little green boat. God’s everlasting arms, always holding me in love, always caring.
I’ve written about God’s love and light several times, overcoming darkness and pain. This is probably the most extreme experience I’ve had of feeling the absence of the presence of God and being able to come back from the brink into His open arms.
This spiritual direction session left me feeling emotionally drained, but I went home with hope in my heart. The phrase ‘I am held in love’ became my breath prayer, which I repeated again and again. That day was a turning point for me. Spiritual direction was not the only thing which helped me, but it had a significant impact on my journey. I began to look up and crawl my way towards light, life, hope, all the while embraced and surrounded by God’s everlasting arms.
My circumstances had not changed. I still had physical pain. I was limited in what I could do. But I no longer felt hopeless and that things would never change.
Incrementally, they have.
AUGUST 12
My spiritual director sent me a message with a verse from her reading the day after we met - Psalm 107:28-31 (NIV):
‘Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble, and he brought them out of their distress. He stilled the storm to a whisper; the waves of the sea were hushed. They were glad when it grew calm, and he guided them to their desired haven. Let them give thanks to the Lord for his unfailing love and his wonderful deed for mankind.’
Oh, what a soothing balm for my battered soul! A promise which felt uniquely mine.
SEPTEMBER 11
I met with my spiritual director again today and she made some interesting observations.
Firstly, that since I have begun to document and reflect on this latest chapter of my journey, I have already moved on from where I was. Makes sense really. My tears which come when I read my story are tears of empathy for this woman I once was but am no longer - tears which understand the pain, the loneliness, the despair, the grief, and want to do something to heal the brokenness.
Also, that the origins of the words ‘heal’ ‘health’ ‘holy’ and ‘whole’ all come from the same source. To become whole, to be healed, to be holy – all the things I pray for and desire – are all tied up together and can’t be separated from each other.
And to be restored to full health and well-being involves body, mind and spirit and is part of the process of growing more like Jesus. I think this is why taking a holistic view of living and spirituality matters.
SEPTEMBER 18
Who is this woman that I see?
Staring out from the pages of my diary?
Teary eyes, in utter despair
A broken body, beyond repair
Mental anguish so very painful
She’s stuck in the mud, feeling miserable
Lost and alone and without purpose
Her life is cold and dark and hopeless
The storm keeps raging
Her boat tossed and drifting
Waves insurmountable
Depth unfathomable
Weak and vulnerable
She can’t go on anymore, ‘tis unbearable
Through the fog and through the pain
A glimmer of hope hangs on the horizon
God reaches down, with arms that surround
To hold her close and help her to know
He’s always been there
For his daughter so dear
She’s held in love, secure and stable
‘til the storm is hushed, like a baby in a cradle
Who is this woman that I see?
With whom I share such empathy?
Once she was me; but she’s drifting no longer
Moment by moment, God’s growing her stronger
To stand upon all that’s good and right
To act with compassion, mercy and might
To see the unseen and trust the invisible
To have hope anchored in Jesus and faith unsinkable
To do what God would have her do
To be healed and whole, honest and true
SEPTEMBER 21
It was so easy to lose sight of the light - God’s light - and allow circumstances, darkness and stormy waves to overwhelm me. It makes me think that many people feel this way – the waves may be different and have different names– but waves nonetheless which threaten to swamp our boats. I am helped so much by being a spiritual directee, and I wonder about the opportunities ahead of me to walk alongside others in a similar way.
I re-read through things I wrote before all this and in the early days of illness. They still hold true, but there are layers of meaning, deeper than I could have imagined when I first wrote them.
Back then they seemed simplistic and naive, now they ring of self-fulfilling prophecy.
Your light is greater than the darkness
Your love greater than any fear
Your joy greater than the hurt and pain
Your hope greater than despair
You are present with us
Working in, around and through us
Your light dispelling the darkness
Your love casting out fear
Building bridges
Breaking down walls
Opening gates
Unlocking doors
Present Day
I wouldn’t change what I experienced, it has given me a deeper, richer, relationship with my God who loves me. And I am forever grateful for the practice of spiritual direction and for my spiritual director who journeyed with me through dark days and opened my eyes to the light, both within and without.
Carolyn Officer lives in Auckland and discovered the practice of spiritual direction through studying a GradDipTh at Laidlaw College in 2015. It continues to transform her life and ground her in Jesus.
