In every tragic situation, God offers us a light to guide us through the darkness. These simple steps can help you discern how God is speaking to you right now.

1. Acknowledge the full range of your experience: body-mind-soul-spirit. Choose an image, word, or value which expresses your experience.
    
2. Give voice to your experience through the words of the Psalms:
   1. Psalm 10 – “Why, O Lord, do you stand far off”
   2. Psalm 13 – “Will you forget me forever?’
   3. Psalm 69 – “It is zeal for your house that has consumed me.”
   4. Psalm 42 – “My soul longs for you, O God.”
   5. Psalm 88 – “My eye grows dim through sorrow.”
   6. Paslm 124 – “Then the flood would have swept us away.”
   7. Psalm 130 – “Out of the depths I cry to you”
       
3. Claim your values. In situations of grave injustice, feelings of anger and dismay and fear are healthy responses. But it’s not enough to stay there. Your feelings are windows into your soul, showing you the values you most deeply care about. You can use the power of those feelings as energy for your prophetic response to this situation in the Church and in the world. What are the values you most deeply care about in this situation? Whom do you really care about, and what do you want for them?
    
4. Ask yourself: What would it be like if I could more deeply live out of these values? What would be different about my thoughts, feelings, choices, and actions?
    
5. Ask Jesus what insight he wants to give you about this situation, what he might be asking you to do this in this situation. Finally, what do you want to say to Jesus?

(c) Daughters of St. Paul. www.pauline.org

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