Rest on Consolation

A few weeks back, I was on a healing retreat and the priest giving it gave us an insight on discerning consolations and desolations in our healing process, and how to rest on those consolations.

Every night, reflect on the things you are grateful for — in other words the places where you felt God loving you. Conversely, also reflect on the things you are not grateful for — the places you struggled to feel God loving you or the places where you did not respond to that love. 

Strive to reduce the desolation places in your life, and increase the consolation places. 

Then, go to bed thinking about that consolation. Resting on it. Savoring it. Reliving it. It will slowly mold your unconscious to rest in the peace of God all night and draw you more into love with Him.

Falling more in love with God, seeing ourselves as loveable, and encountering God’s love through an ‘interpersonal bridge’ of someone loving you and speaking those words of comfort and care as God would, was this priest’s insight on the ticket to healing. Love is the ticket to healing.

He added that if you didn’t have a consoling moment during the day, which sometimes will happen, have a “go-to” consolation. 

We were asked to think about what that “go-to” consolation is for us. Although I have had many “big” consolations, there was one that stuck out for me. 

I was on a retreat in Phoenix overwhelmed with the intimacy of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament in a small, dark chapel illumined by a candle. I will never, ever forget that moment alone with Christ where I felt His love sweeping over, embracing me. I will never forget the many sweet hours of alone time I had with Him in that chapel. 

What’s your’s? What is that “big” consolation that you should return to that grabbed your heart that you can’t seem to forget?

Strive to see those consolations each day, return to those “big” consolations, and rest in them, drawing yourself further into the Lord’s love and presence, and consequently, healing those broken places.

Falling deeper in love with God, and finally recognizing ourselves as completely loved by Him, is the source of our healing. Resting in consolations can help get us there.