“Those who will live it will be those who are already drawn in that way,
having been prepared by God. They will ‘resonate’ with me,
with the vision, and with each other, like tuning forks…”
– Nancy Shuman, The Cloistered Heart
In March of 2022, I began experiencing a strange interior phenomenon: my heart would ache painfully in my chest, almost as if it was trying to double in size. It caused a deep, full pain, although outwardly there was no sign. This happened many times between March and June 2022.
I didn’t believe it to have a physical cause, because it usually happened when I was in prayer or in the Lord’s Eucharistic Presence. It seemed almost a reaction to being with or near the Lord. As if the Lord was purifying my soul in some way.
When I asked the Lord about it, I received these mysterious words: “I am preparing you for the expansion.”
What Did It Mean?
“The expansion of what?” I wondered aloud. “The expansion of my writing?”
I enjoyed thinking about this as I emptied the dishwasher with my daughter. It was a fine, clear morning in March. Full of promise, and hope.
What might a writing expansion look like? Would it be a career breakthrough, like finding an agent or a publisher? Or perhaps an online breakthrough, like garnering more followers and subscribers?
I stacked the plates in neat rows, then pulled out the cereal bowls. I knew that if the Lord wanted to, He could use my words to touch many people’s hearts.
Maybe my writing skill and influence will expand, I dreamed. Maybe I’ll write something so good, true, and beautiful, people will read it across the globe.
When all the dishes were put away, I closed the dishwasher and leaned against the countertop.
Or…maybe that’s not what the Lord meant by “expansion” at all.
My burning desire to succeed as a writer might not be God’s will for me–at least right now. I had worked very hard for the last eight years to improve my writing and seek a publisher for my first book. Nothing that I’d achieved had come easily. When it came to writing, even telling a great story was not enough. It took persistence, time, and a measure of good luck to find success.
And my best writing, especially for the blog, was born out of a bloody interior battle. It demanded more than my best words; it demanded my very heart. This was part of the reason why I longed for my writing to reach a larger audience. After all the difficulty that went into crafting each word, I wanted it to serve as many people as possible.
The Servant Is Not Greater Than the Master
Helping people find hope and healing was the reason for my posts. I shared my life story so that others could hear echoes of their own life journey in my words. My stories were meant to be a mirror in which the reader could safely examine their own thoughts, emotions, and experiences. If my posts made no connections with my readers, there was little point in writing them at all.
Making connections was costly. It meant revealing my true self to an often careless, indifferent world.
Our Lord Jesus Christ shed His Blood and died on the cross to save humanity from their sins. And yet so few love Him! If Jesus our Savior is so forgotten and ignored, then how could I expect to be treated any differently? Surely the servant is not greater than the master.
The Expansion
That spring, my heart kept aching, “expanding”, but my writing influence remained the same. In July 2022, I decided to write about my experience on Life After Convent blog. I titled my post The Expansion:
The ache had started happening, in little bits and pieces, over the past two weeks. Not like when I went to the doctor and found out my rib had moved out of place. This was a different, interior ache. A heartache that was sorrow; a sorrow that was love.
This heartache hurt, but it meant Him. It meant He was coming.
Mary Rose Kreger, The Expansion
A week later, I settled onto the family room couch to check the day’s emails. Cora Brown*, the lady from the Cloistered Hearts, had sent me a message:
Hello Mary Rose,
I recently read your latest blog post “The Expansion” and just wanted to share how it spoke to me and reminded me of something I, too, experienced some years ago. You were speaking of “a heartache that was sorrow; a sorrow that was love.” This brought back a memory for me of a similar experience I had quite a few years ago…I was so in love with God and wanted Him so badly (as you said you wanted intimacy – union), that is exactly what I wanted and it was a true heart pain – a deep longing and sigh of my heart. Perhaps because being in my earthly state, I didn’t see at all how that would be possible to attain.
You said you have so long waited…for the convent of the heart. When I first found Nancy Shuman’s book, The Cloistered Heart, I just kept saying to myself, “How does she know?” It was as if her words were coming from my own heart yet it wasn’t from my own personal journals that I was reading from. It was from another person in this life who had this same longing, this same yearning, in her own life…
[D]id you order and read Nancy’s book?
[M]y consecration as a Cloistered Heart…has changed and given direction to my life.
I look forward to reading more about your journey and, again, I would love to speak to you if you like.
Cora’s message was just the nudge I needed. The next day I ordered The Cloistered Heart book and then emailed Cora back:
Dear Cora,
Thank you so much for writing back to me about the post, The Expansion. I think you understand something about my heart better than I do. I have spent much of the last ten years feeling disillusioned and confused. Grateful to the Lord for His many external gifts and for my married vocation, but also longing for more. Longing for Him.
I haven’t read the book, “The Cloistered Heart”, only the blog, but I just ordered the book tonight. It’s due to arrive next Monday on my birthday. It will be a good present, I think. 🙂 I am very interested in making a special consecration to the Lord…
I hope we can talk very soon!
Cora knew. She had felt the heart-pain, too. She knew how it felt to long for God so much, it physically hurt. God had granted us both the same grace.
Had He also destined us both for the same call? Was I, like Cora, meant to become a Cloistered Heart?
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*Name changed
Thanks so much for reading! Please join me next week for more! 💗😊
Are you interested in learning more about The Cloistered Hearts? Visit The Cloistered Heart: Start Here! to learn more. 🙂
