This is an excert from my prayer book’s meditation for July 29th…by Max Lucado…

“We need to remember that the disciples were common men given a compelling task. Before they were the stained-glass saints in the windows of cathedrals, they were somebody’s next-door neighbors trying to make a living and raise families. They weren’t cut from theological cloth or raised on supernatural milk. But they were an ounce more devoted than they were afraid, and as a result, did extraordinary things.”

Mother Teresa didn’t start out to be a “stained-glass saint”…she was just a feisty little woman who heard God calling her to care for the poor in Calcutta; she answered the call with every ounce of devotion and energy she could muster – even though time and the constant parade of death and poverty led her into her own “holy darkness” or soul journey. One of the paradoxes of faith for some (Mother Teresa included) is that the more deeply we experience God’s love and presence, the more impossible it is to comprehend His silence, and the more difficult the unanswered questions become to tolerate.

As I was reading Lucado’s meditation, I couldn’t help but think of our own Princess Lenora…I see Lynn as someone who has suffered through an unimaginable “dark night of the soul” and come out the other side “more devoted than afraid…doing extraordinary things” to help others.

That to me is what it’s (life, faith, wholeness) all about…turning our tragedies into strength for others, our perceived failures into compassion for others, our “dark nights” into beacons of light for others.

Everything that happens to us, no matter how dark, ugly or unredemptive it feels at the time, holds the powerful treasure of opportunity to learn and evolve “beyond the tears” (Lynn’s book title) and do extraordinary things for others along their way.