THE LOVE THAT GOT ME HERE
As a child, I talked to God lying on my back reading symbols in the sky but I was unable to sense much beyond human judgement in the religious institutions I would occasionally attend. As a teenager and into my early 20’s, I turned toward exploration of Taoism, Buddhism, and various pagan religions because of what seemed like a lack of God in my religious legacy of Christianity.
But when I was about 24, I was gifted a studded leather belt with an image of our Lady of Guadalupe on the buckle. I wore it with irony across the hips of my skintight jeans all of which complemented my big boots and lawnmowed red hair. It quickly became a favorite token of jaded humor on my costume of rebellion.
While I was feigning disinterest, she took her opportunity and began to speak to me from stickers at coffee shops and neck tattoos. As time rolled by, she called me to her places of worship and showed me something beyond the empty façade that broke my heart as a child. Time after time, she would show up undisturbed by my feral ways and always gracing me with her eternal love.
From that first belt buckle, she never let go of me. It never mattered how I dismissed or downplayed our relationship. She loved me as her sensitive and defiant child -and she knew my heart.
And overtime, I softened bit by bit and she became a guide and an inspiration. She taught me about grace, compassion, the magnificent power of the feminine, and about the strength to cry a million tears and still persist. From her, I learned what a mother is -both divine and human. She helped me navigate the majestically transformative waters of raising my son and find my own inner mother to parent the most wounded aspects of myself.
She showed me time and time again the boundless power of my heart.
This last weekend, I visited the original Basilica built to her in Mexico City. I arrived with a heavy heart and a mind full of doubt. My judgement of my limitations, piled on my actual and imagined limitations, was creating a pervasive angst.
I fabricated some interest at information at the door and moved inside to the heart of the basilica and knelt. Tears came to my eyes as I put my palms together at my chest and continued to roll down my cheeks as I prayed.
I thanked her in the way a child can finally thank their mother after becoming a parent. I thanked her for reaching to me when was unable to reach back. I thanked her for showing me how to find purity through the muck of life. For showing me the splendor of my broken heart, reminding me of my strength, and never letting go.
As I was comforted, I was able to bring my doubts to mind and in her grace a crystalline impression came forward about my direction. Being the ever skeptical child, I showed her my uncertainty and fear and she simply looked back with a mother’s love. The same love that held Jesus as he walked his path and stood at his feet as he gave his life.
A love that grows no matter what it faces.