Finding God’s Guidance

My Experience with LFTH and Spiritual Companionship

We continue in our PartnerConnect series through this summer hearing from some of our fellow partners as they reflect on their experience of spiritual direction. Today’s gift comes from our friend Lize Apperloo. Thank you so much Lize for sharing some of your journey and for opening so beautifully to the invitations offered to you in spiritual direction. We are deeply grateful for you!
~ Deb Arndt

I had heard about spiritual direction years before I got to experience it. Reading about it created a hunger in my spirit. Knowing where to go to experience it did not come easily, but when it did, it was exactly what I needed to honor the grief journey I had just begun after the loss of my husband.

After living in communities where so many people were stuck in their grief, I was determined to navigate my grief slowly and thoroughly, dedicating one year for every decade we had been married. Little did I know that Living from the Heart (LFTH), with its requirement for spiritual direction, would be the God-given gift to help me do just that. It provided an excellent companion for me to realize the extent of His love. It overwhelms me, even now, to think about how God orchestrated it all—not only for grieving but also for growing awareness of the life-giving incidents in my life that I had not taken the time to notice, and the obstacles in my thinking that hindered a life of freedom. Often, I would hear, “Hold that thought,” and as I did, more revelations would come. Then the invitation to wonder would enrich and magnify it even more.

This past year, while taking SoulStream Ignatian Spiritual Exercises (SISE), I was privileged to experience another companion. Again, God knew just who I needed. It was much more intense to meet every week, filled with lots of laughter and tears, sometimes dealing with the same issues at the next layer and other times with more current issues.

Recently, I read a quote from T.S. Eliot that expresses why spiritual direction is something I plan to always have in my life:

“We will not cease from exploration,
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.”

I am so grateful to Maureen and Sally. It has been a very good journey.

— Lize Apperloo

Source: PartnerConnect July 26, 2024