The drawing

There was something about the drawing Naomi had made on the day of her cardiac arrest.

What I hadn't seen before

Toward the end of the RCIA program, the ministry organised a retreat. On the final day, each of us was invited to briefly share what we had learned or experienced over the past few days.

As I was thinking about what to say, a drawing Naomi had made came to mind. She had drawn it at a friend’s house after school, on the very day she suffered that devastating cardiac arrest. When the mother of her friend heard what had happened, she came to the hospital and gave the drawing to Paulina. She thought we would consider it precious, as it was the last drawing Naomi had made.

When we later moved into our home in Singapore, Paulina hung it on the wall beside Naomi’s bed. It had been there all this time, yet I had never really paid attention to it.

Thinking about it at the retreat, I remembered what Naomi had drawn: a little girl flying a kite. I also remembered that she had drawn hearts around it — one on each corner, I thought.

As I pictured the drawing in my mind, I suddenly “heard” the words: “Lift up your cross to me.”

At first, I didn’t understand. What cross? I wondered. Then it struck me: the kite was a cross — our cross — representing our sadness, our difficulties, our suffering. I felt that Jesus was inviting us to lift it up to him. It was as if something that had been there all along, hidden in plain sight, was suddenly revealed.

Back home after the retreat, I took a closer look at the drawing:

I realised I had completely forgotten about the cloud with a little girl standing on it. I had never really wondered why Naomi would draw someone standing on a cloud. There were also far more hearts surrounding the cross than I had remembered.

There was a clear sense of movement in the drawing. It looked as though the girl on the cloud was approaching the cross, while hearts flowed from her and surrounded it completely. The drawing seemed to express what I had “heard”: the girl on the ground lifting up the cross — lifting it all the way to heaven, where it was received with love. It gave me goosebumps.

I felt both unsure and reassured at the same time. Unsure — and sad — because of everything that had happened, and because I had no idea what lay ahead of us. Reassured, because it felt like I had just received another quiet sign that we were not alone.

My eyes were drawn again to the hearts. I counted them: two near the girl on the cloud, ten surrounding the cross, twelve in total.

That made me pause. In of one of our RCIA sessions I had learned that numbers in Scripture often carry meaning, and I wondered if that might be the case here as well. I knew I might be reading too much into it, but I still wanted to understand.

The two hearts above the cloud caught my attention first. They made me think of Jesus — the second person of the Trinity — and also of relationship: that what we were going through might not be something we carried alone, but something we carried with him.

The number twelve made me think of the twelve apostles, of the Church, and of being part of something larger than ourselves — a communion of people with one Father in heaven.

Looking at Naomi’s drawing, I found myself imagining what it might mean to take our suffering, lift it up, surrender it to Jesus, and allow him to receive it with the fullness of his love. If Jesus so lovingly held our cross, perhaps we were being invited to do the same — to embrace it rather than try to escape it. That didn’t make our burden disappear, but it began to change how I carried it. Something in me shifted — from restless resistance to a calmer, more patient endurance.

It reminded me of St. Paul, who spoke about a suffering he had asked God three times to take away, but which remained. Instead, God answered him by saying that his grace was sufficient.

God also didn’t seem to be in a hurry to free us from our troubles, yet his grace had kept us from being overcome by them.

Finally, the ten hearts around the cross itself. Looking at them, I remembered that ten is often associated with completeness and order — like the Ten Commandments — and I began to sense that our suffering might not be chaotic or meaningless, but somehow held within God’s order, even if we could not see or understand it.

Again I thought of St. Paul. He suffered, yet his life clearly had a purpose, even though it wasn’t always revealed to him. Grace seemed to meet him in the midst of his trials — not removing them, but sustaining him through them. And still, he remained faithful within it.

That stayed with me. We hadn’t chosen to be in this situation, yet I began to feel that what was asked of us was not only to endure it, but to remain faithful within it. Not just a burden to carry, but — difficult as it was to accept — perhaps also a participation in something beyond us.

For when I am weak, then I am strong

I wanted to know exactly what God had told St. Paul, so I searched for it in my Bible and found the words: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”

It was the next verse — St. Paul’s response — that struck me most:

“For the sake of Christ, then, I am content in weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities; for when I am weak, then I am strong.” (2 Corinthians 12:10)

I already knew I had received the grace to believe. But we had also been given the grace to endure — through years of stress, exhaustion and uncertainty.

The words I had heard — “Lift up your cross to me” — now seemed to reach further. I felt invited to entrust not only our fears and suffering, but Naomi herself, into Jesus’ care. And to trust that, in a way we could not yet see, everything would be “all right.”

I was still learning to trust.

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Next: The triple encouragement