Finding meaning through sharing stories
The following story is from Philip, a pastor and author whose recovery has been supported by his faith and his writing. Whatever your beliefs, religious or otherwise, they play a role in healing, meaning and resilience after stroke.
Philip had his stroke in 2024, on his way to his church’s 15th anniversary with his wife and 6-month-old daughter. They drove to the hospital instead, where he was fortunate enough to get clot-busting thrombolysis treatment, and walked out 6 days later. But it was 6 weeks later, when he was heading out to lunch with friends, that he finally realised the full impact, and the long journey ahead.
As Philip tells it, writing became a powerful voice in his recovery, that helped him to articulate his griefs and fears, and his place within a larger story.
"Amidst everything that’s happened in the past eighteen months, I’ve felt anchored by my Christian faith. We all need bigger stories to make sense of our lives. But for me, the Christian hope has helped me make sense of it all. One quote spoke to me powerfully throughout it all, from the pastor and philosopher James K. A. Smith: 'God is a mosaic artist who takes the broken fragments of our history and does a new thing: he creates a work of art in which that history is reworked such that the mosaic could only be what it is with that history. God’s grace goes back to fetch our pasts for the sake of the future.'
"Every loss, every deficit, every lunch you couldn’t make, every cell that's died in the stroke. There’s hope for those broken fragments, to be gathered up into a new thing, into a whole, into a greater story.
"If you’re recovering from a stroke, and if your body no longer feels like home, I hope that you can find ways to share that experience. It doesn’t have to be writing. But any means to give a voice to the grief that’s been camouflaged in your body. It always takes time. But the process always starts with sharing it.
"But tell your story, even if it’s unfinished. Write it, speak it, pray it. Let others help carry the things you can’t even name yet. Because, by God’s grace, there’s always value to what’s been lost. And as we share our stories together; as the things that have been camouflaged are truly seen; as our stories are knit into a greater story, we can work to find that hope together."
Read Philip's full story on strokefoundation.org.au – please note it contains descriptions and photos from his time in hospital.
