Ben Wilson, LPC

By Ann Wilson

As I look toward spending some time at my Ozarks sanctuary, (which
I spoke of I here) and shared with
friends about recently, I thought of another sanctuary that I love…Colorado. I
told a different set of friends how Colorado has a soft place in my soul that
will never be replaced and that I will always long for the sun setting over the
mountains, the cool crisp mountain air, the aspens shooting to the sky and
multiplying like crazy, the snow that stays around just long enough for me to
fall in love with it every time. But it is not the landscape of this land alone
that sets my heart to the west, but how Colorado changed the landscape of my
heart.

I arrived in Morrison, Colorado in 1996 a slightly softened,
but still hard, woman. God placed us in a community like no other, a community
of Jesus followers who were broken just like me…who were hurting just like me…who
were healing just like me…who were unafraid of grief, much unlike me. Through
that year, living with and loving and being loved by these other wayfarers of
the soul gave me the freedom to be unafraid of my grief. To grieve all that
brokenness, to grieve all that pain, to fully immerse myself in the grief of my
Daddy’s illness and death that first year, to fully embrace life, love and
grace. My own soul began to shoot toward the sky and beauty multiplied like
crazy, and I began to learn to love myself all over again, maybe for the first
time.

And as I consider this place my heart many times calls home
even though I haven’t lived there for over 6 years, I feel the enormous grief
of the shooting in Aurora these past days. May those who have been touched by
this tragedy (and isn’t that all of us, really?) be unafraid of their grief,
unafraid of their pain and find sanctuary and beauty in their souls in the
midst of the brokenness.