Unveiling painful truths and moving to the other side of pain

 

“Unveiling all the painful truths [in my memoir] would expose my children,” wrote memoirist Kathleen Pooler, “and I constantly asked myself:

• Do I have the right to do that?
• Will it be worth it?
• Will it affect our relationship as adults?

 

“I knew I could not publish this story without the full cooperation of both my children.”

 

And Kathy’s kids, bless their hearts, did give their mother their full cooperation.

 

“The answers to those questions,” continued Kathy, “all came in due time as the years passed and distance helped us all sort through the many layers of feelings. . . .

 

“This may be my story but it is also their story. . . . I think of my memoir as a love letter to them.”

 

Read that again: “I think of my memoir as a love letter to them.”

 

Can you, like Kathy,

write your memoir as a love letter

to your family and friends?

And even strangers?

Think about that.

Kathy admitted writing was painful and from that, she offers you this hope:

“When I first started writing out my stories, facing painful memories was difficult.

“As I kept writing, new insights revealed themselves to me just through the process of facing them and writing about them.

“I experienced healing through reading my own words and began to feel I was on the other side of the pain.”

Perhaps a similar experience happened to Henri Houwen, who wrote, “Often we discover the joy in the midst of sorrow.

“I remember the most painful times of my life” he said, “at times in which I became aware of a spiritual reality much larger than myself, a reality that allowed me to live the pain with hope. 

“I dare even to say: ‘My grief was the place where I found my joy.’”

 

Have you, too, discovered joy in the midst of your sorrow?

Has God helped you live with pain and hope

at the same time?

 

Perhaps you, like Henri Nouwen, can say,

“My grief was the place where I found my joy.”

(Henri Nouwen, Here and Now)

 

 

Kathy and Henri remind me of this Elisabeth Elliot quote:

 

“When you’re in a dark place, you sometimes tend to think you’ve been buried. Perhaps you’ve been planted. Bloom.”

Henri bloomed!

 

Kathy bloomed! And you’ll be inspired to bloom by reading her second memoir, Just the Way He Walked: A Mother’s Story of Hope and Healing.

Make time to think about Henri's words, 

and Kathy's words, 

and then write your stories. 

Someone needs to know them. 

Someone needs to grab hold of the hope you can offer.