My Wordless Spirit

Romans 8: 26-27
Brothers and sisters: The Spirit comes to the aid of our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes with inexpressible groanings. And the one who searches hearts knows what is the intention of the Spirit, because he intercedes for the holy ones according to God’s will.

Greetings to all! As I was reading over the Mass reading in preparation for Mass this afternoon these words that Paul wrote to the Romans really ministered to my heart and gave me consolation in my own lack of words I so often feel. Yes, at times I actually am at a loss for words as crazy as that sounds. As I watch my wife grieve I realize that there is nothing that I can “say” to make it any better and the times I do open my mouth I do the typical husband thing and say something stupid that makes her angry or sad.
As you can imagine the past year of our life has been very difficult. We have found ourselves in places that we never would have thought we would be in our short marriage. The whole pregnancy was VERY difficult on both of us and there was a quiet disconnect that had taken place. Yes, we lived under the same roof, we parented the same kids, but as a husband and wife we lacked “connection” with each other’s heart. After Cate was born and she did so well in the first few months Ali and I truly began to reunite our hearts and it was wonderful. We enjoyed each other’s companionship, conversation, friendship, and really just connecting on the deeper level of being a husband and wife.
Well, here we are again. Another very difficult spot and it is not always a fun ride right now. I am watching the woman that I love the most in this world, hurt, and I mean hurt bad. As, THE MAN, of the house, I want to fix it. I want to take out my tools of the trade that I have done for years and help her “work” through this, but I am STINKING IT UP at times. There are a lot of times that we are just not ready to be around other people yet. So, who do we have but each other? Two people who have said just about everything they have to say to each other right now about where they are at and how they feel. Therefore we just sit in silence a lot of the time. It’s a difficult silence, at moments it can be a deafening silence. It does not make me angry, it just makes me hurt more. I feel like I could not “fix” Cate, I cannot “fix” my wife or my kids and at times I just feel useless and helpless. I know that they only thing that I can do right now
is once again find myself at the throne room door, just knocking on their behalf, because I
do not know what else to do.
On Thursday when I wrote the blog, “Taking Off the Old Yolk” was a particularly tough day. I had called Ali and could tell by her voice that she was just hurting and I sat there on the phone in silence, not knowing what to say. This was mainly because the night before we were on our way home and I tried to offer her my words of “wisdom” and as Dude says, “It’s not working so well.” Thursday morning I had decided to go to noon Mass and I knew that Ali was at her moms just hanging out. I called over there to ask her what I could pray for her for, but she was indisposed at the moment and I was walking into Church so I would not be able to talk to her before Mass began. As I knelt in Church just “groaning” to the father, not know what to say the words, “lighten her yolk” came to my heart and I just prayed for that over and over before Mass began. I had not had a chance to look over the readings before Mass and what was the Mass reading but the exact words, “My yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
The Spirit was taking the wordlessness of my heart and turning it into the exact prayers that He knew needed to be brought to the Father. Even in the Homily the priest said, “God is For Us!” which is what I read in a book and wrote on a piece of paper and nailed to the backdoor of our house so that we would see it every time we walked out the door. As I read this reading this morning I was reminded that the, “Promise of the Father,” the Holy Spirit is in fact with us. It may not make it any “easier” but it makes me want to continue on. I know that we are not alone on this journey that all of you are with us and praying for us, but it is nice to be reminded that God is on our side too. My prayer is that we all might know and be reminded “that the one who searches hearts” knows our hearts even if we do not know what to say or how to pray at any given moment. We love you all, remain with us and pray that we might be reminded often, that God is with us.
Much Love, The Cantrells