Hold is my 2026 word of the year.
“I’m holding you in my heart.” means I’m praying for you and your intentions. I see the heartache you are experiencing right now and will walk with you through it. I see the joy and am praising with you. I see your grief and am grieving with you. I know you need prayer and I’m praying with you.
Hold may also mean pause, or wait. There is some waiting here. Some is comfortable, some is not. Either way it’s good to lean into the discomfort and see what’s there. When I go to spiritual direction there is a need to spend some time looking at where I’m experiencing God in my life and asking Him what to bring there. In January my director asked me to ask God when/where the desolation began. God will tell you. The following weekend was the annual ongoing formation for the diocesan Spiritual Directors, on Liminal Space. Liminal Space is the space in between here and there, it can also be described in some ways as the desert or even, to use my word of the year, a Hold, think of the waiting time while on the phone. Eventually the beginning place of the desolation came up, which surprised me. Recently in spiritual direction golden light bathed on both the place of the beginning and the liminal space/desolation. And the clarification that this wasn’t what I thought it was. Yet it was. I was in desolation and I was grieving. One thing from the Liminal Space weekend that I knew was being asked of me through all of this was not to rush through to the end, to wait and see what the Trinity has here and to proceed with gentleness and I’m still pondering this place for it seems far richer than a single reflection can fully understand.
The leaving of desolation surprised me too because it wasn’t what I thought it was. This was a stepping into one of the spiritual gifts and returning it to God in a way that I really would prefer not to do and being fully honest with God, the person I needed to discuss something with and myself that I didn’t want to. It is so much more fun to exercise this particular spiritual gift in one way. Further, Hold, like so much right now, is taking on a depth I don’t understand. In part it means hands open, palms facing up in a posture of receptivity. Something akin to “The Lord gives, the Lord takes Blessed be the Name of the Lord” way of looking at what’s placed in my hands, what’s removed from my hands.
As I write Mary Magdalene at the tomb of Jesus comes to mind. Part of what came out of this is one of my wounded places is healing and it’s uncomfortable as I adjust to what that feels like and like Mary Magadalene at the tomb Jesus is asking me to stand when what is far more natural is to fall at his feet. This though is very much in keeping with the experience of the Trinity of recent times when sitting on the Fathers lap, listening to His Heart Beat, it is listening to Jesus and the whoosh whoosh whoosh is the Spirit. When the Father is holding my arms and swinging me around the trust and the strength are felt in my being, the fun of swinging around feeling the air rush over my little body is so delightful. Here is a freedom and trust that is being lived and still discovering.
Happy Ordinary Time!
Teri
A Quilter's Heart 