Sursum Corda means lift up your hearts! A post about the new name

The theme for the month of March was transformation, and though I didn't know it at the beginning of the month, I felt prompted by the Holy Spirit that it was time to make the transformation He'd been calling me to in my apostolate.

I'd been recognizing a feeling that He was calling me to something a little bit broader in scope - still mainly offering retreats for mothers grieving the loss of a child, but expanding to offer tools and resources to help women heal from other wounds as well.

And what are these wounds?

Well, to put it simply, we were created by God to experience a divine love, but we live in a broken world. Any time we experience a lack of that perfect, holy love, we can be wounded, either by a withholding of something that we should have received or by an inflicting of something that we should not have received.

You may look around and think, "I feel broken and sad, but I haven't experienced something as hard as so-and-so has." This can cause you to downplay your own wounds, and not seek healing for them.

Or you may think, "I can't even begin to identify all the things that have hurt me! It's like death by a thousand cuts!" This can cause you to think that your wounds are beyond healing.

Just before the consecration in the Mass, we have a responsorial exchange with the priest.

"Lift up your hearts," he says.

"We lift them up to the Lord," we respond.

But do we? Do we lift our broken hearts to the Lord?

Maybe we fear He won't want them - like we're not enough because of our brokenness and God won't want us until we get our act together.

Maybe we feel hurt by Him and worry that He will hurt us again - we don't trust Him with our wounds.

But God wants all of us, and He is not afraid to enter into woundedness Himself in order to heal us. Christ's own wounds are both the source of our salvation and the source of our healing. "By his wounds we are healed." (1 Peter 2:24)

St. Augustine said, "In my deepest wound I saw Your glory, and it dazzled me."

What could this mean?

It reminds me of the practice of Kintsugi, where broken pottery is repaired using gold or silver. The resulting dish is even more beautiful than it was before it became broken.

This is the kind of work that God wants to do with us. Our healed wounds can become part of our story - the part that reflect the beauty of the Healer, who allows us to experience a greater wholeness than we would have if we had never been broken. This is the work of a God whose ways are not our ways, and I've experienced this healing from Him first hand.

My own healing journey and my work toward certification in Catholic coaching have taught me just how beneficial the hard work of healing these wounds can be - and that the effort involved in the healing can be so much easier than the painful work of remaining in the brokenness. It's a constant journey of peeling back layers of protection I've built up around my heart and offering it to the Lord, trusting in His goodness, mercy, and love. But it only serves to draw me closer and closer to Him. And that's exactly the point.

I've experienced the brokenness of child loss, but also the wounding of family dysfunction, the pain of harm inflicted on my children, the challenges of unhealthy relationships, and the wounds that I have inflicted on myself from assenting to core beliefs (lies) that I'm unlovable, I'm unworthy, I'm not enough, I'm too much (yes, both of those), and so much more. And I know I'm not alone in any of these.

That's why I've decided to offer two main programs throughout the year - my Present in the Pain retreat for mothers of pregnancy and child loss, and Beauty from the Brokenness for any women who have been wounded by life in this valley of tears. In addition, I'll still offer my online community, coaching, live retreats, and occasional online workshops.

I hope you'll stick around for this new iteration of my apostolate. If anything, I think it will have even more to offer than it did before.

"Let us lift up our hearts and our hands to God in heaven." - Lamentations 3:41