I recently had the honor of leading a writing activity for fellow writers at a retreat. The activity, My Crystal Moment, was a timeline exercise that examined key points or experiences in our lives that intersected with our faith journey. And then, because we are writers, we wrote a brief reaction to those intersections.
It was meaningful to me because as an immigrant, and daughter and granddaughter of immigrants, the national conversation on this topic is close to my heart. That it coincided with the release of my book, A Beautiful Second Act, in which I examine and call upon Saints who have had to shift or pivot into second acts, new adventures, and change, was not lost on me or my examination. I humbly present to you the unedited raw response from the activity. It may be the basis of something longer in the future, but sometimes, it is the first reaction to discovery that is the best.
The story of my life is exile. I came into this world without my father. My mother was surrounded by her parents and siblings, and no other family. She was born to parents in exile from the Spanish Civil war. She never knew her grandparents or her aunts and uncles.
My mother had her parents and brothers and sisters, but not her husband.
And I didn’t have my father.
Despite that, I did not experience abandonment. I was not fatherless; I just didn’t have my father with me at the time. What I did have, and still have, is a sense of waiting. Waiting for the day we would be united.
In order to be with my father, though, I would have to leave everything else that I loved behind. Each gain in my life has come with loss. Having three beautiful children came with a loss of two in the womb. Every career move for my husband came with a loss of opportunity in mine. Every move to a new city came with loss of friends and family.
I am in a perpetual state of exile, and even as the tears burned hot in my eyes at this surprising revelation, I see that we are all exiles.
From the moment Adam and Eve were expelled from the garden, all the generations and generations before us have been in exile, waiting for the day when we return to our true home in Paradise when we are reunited with our Father in heaven. As I look at this, I see that regardless where I have been in my nomadic life, God my father has been present through it all.
The one virtue I have had, always, from the moment I was born, is hope. I see that it is hope, hope in Jesus Christ, hope in his mercy, that will see me home to my heavenly Father. I’m grateful for the Holy Spirit who in his love gave me a glimpse into this Truth.