Sunrises and storms.

Last year, my Lenten journey was one of discovering joy. Rising early, in the still and quiet hours of the morning, and bearing witness to the beauty of the sun rising and starting a new day.

My journey this year, seems to be the complete opposite. Bearing witness to pain, instead of beauty and joy.  Instead of pulling me out of bed to experience the joy of the sun, my journey this year pulls me out of bed to experience the power of a storm. (My neighbors think I’m really normal…crazy lady sitting on the porch at the crack of dawn and standing in the middle of a rainstorm.)

Standing in the midst of a storm is scary. The wind whips and thunder crashes. No matter how old I am, it just makes me want to crawl under the covers in a safe place. Storms have power and are an unstoppable force. Any person with small children (or fur babies) knows the struggle of praying for temporary deafness so the storm doesn’t wake those precious bundles of joy. But it doesn’t usually work because storms, by their nature, command our attention.

Much like pain.

I’ve been reading a fantastic book called The Gift of Pain by Dr. Paul Brand. The book recounts Dr. Brand’s experiences working with leprosy patients over his extensive career. He was pivotal in changing the idea that the leprosy bacteria eats away at the body. He helped discover the main effect of leprosy is numbness…painlessness. The lack of pain leads a person to unknowingly cause harm to their own body. Without the wisdom pain brings, his leprosy patients were unable to protect themselves. He tells unbelievable stories of people walking on severely broken limbs because they had no way to tell there was a problem. Or even something as simple as a pebble in the shoe, a person that feels pain can compensate by redistributing their weight until the pebble can be removed.  But a person who feels nothing? They will continue on and most likely cause an injury, that will be more susceptible to infection because there is no pain to remind them of the injury.

Pain is our body’s teacher and protector.

In our society though, pain is something to be avoided at all cost. Pain is pushed as far away from the body as possible. Because of this fear and revulsion of pain, people in pain are typically pushed aside also. It can be difficult to wade through the waters with someone experiencing physical or emotional pain. It almost always guarantees inviting a certain amount of pain into your own life.

Galatians 6:2 doesn’t just recommend walking with those in pain, it tells us it fulfills the law of Christ.

Bear one another’s burdens, and so you will fulfill the law of Christ.

Bearing burdens doesn’t necessarily mean fixing problems. We can’t always make pain go away. Sometimes pain needs to be there to teach and instruct. Sometimes pain alerts us to bigger problems. And sometimes pain is mysterious and we have no idea why it is present. Bearing burdens simply means making the load lighter. Taking on some of the pain, so the other person can breathe.

So, let’s be a Church of burden bearers. Not shying away from hurt, but gladly walking aside those among us in pain. Wading through the murky waters together.

I love folding laundry, and other lies I tell myself.

I’m going to let you in on a little secret.  I absolutely love folding my family’s laundry.  I know, right? Go ahead and start polishing that statue of me. Make sure to get my halo just right.  My children will rise up and call me blessed.

Let me set the scene for you.  It’s 3 o’clock.  I’ve done all the fun things with the kids all day.  School work is finished.  I’ve just tucked them all in for an hour (or two) of video games.  I grab my overflowing pile of laundry and announce, “Mommy’s going to fold laundry in my room.” The children generously praise me for being so hardworking and loving them so much.  I plop down on the bed, turn Netflix on, fold a sock.  The End.

Sitting with my laundry while I binge on TV makes me feel semi-productive.  Sure I’ve watched 6 episodes of Fixer Upper, but I also folded this sock and I’m clearly still working because I’m. sitting. next. to. a. pile. of. laundry.

I find myself telling similar lies in my faith life.

“I’m doing so many things for you, God. Aren’t you impressed with all the church I’m attending? With my kids!? I’ve got those rugrats there every week. Every week, I tell you! I smile at people. Even when I don’t feel happy,  I still smile.  Isn’t that self-sacrificing, God? I volunteered at the place, before, remember? Such good times!  I’m doing alright.”

But I’m fairly sure real faith looks a little different.  It looks a lot more like a heavily pregnant woman riding a donkey across the desert because she said yes to bearing the savior of the world.  It looks a lot more like Moses going before a king and asking the impossible because a burning bush said, “I AM.” It looks a lot more like pouring out expensive oil and tears at the feet of Jesus.

It looks HARD.

But here’s the catch of lying to yourself.  Sitting next to the laundry isn’t enough to get it folded.

Sitting next to real faith isn’t enough to get things done either.  If we aren’t doing hard things, we aren’t doing it right.  Real love requires sacrifice. And sacrifice hurts.  There’s no formula because God calls us to different hard things. Forgiving wrongs. Loving the unlovable. Serving the poor.  Caring for the forgotten and neglected.  Love is action.

Sitting in close proximity to real faith isn’t enough.  We have to dig in, and do the work.

 

 

 

 

It WAS a Good Friday

Lent is over….

I have so many thoughts and feelings.  It has been 40 days of growing, praying, learning, kneeling, fasting, and being pruned.  Letting God, the loving vinedresser, cut away the things in my life that were choking out the new growth. Cutting away the sin and distractions that were keeping me from loving Him and others like I should.  Cutting away the excesses in my life that had piled up and piled up to the point where I could hardly see around them.

“If was not you who chose me, but I who chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name He may give you. This I command you: love one another.” John 15:16-17

We have the ability to love and serve and bear fruit because God first loved us.  He loved us enough to send a perfect, unblemished lamb to be sacrificed in our place.

Good Friday is a day of remembering this sacrifice.

In the Catholic Church, we venerate the Cross on Good Friday. We come, with all our hurting and pain, and we kiss the Cross that gave us Life and freed us from sin. We remember and we honor. My heart longs for this way to express gratitude for something words will never be able to encompass.  Salvation and Life.  Words may fail me, but actions convey the burning in my heart.  Walking up to the Cross with my brothers and sisters, I was overcome at the beauty of the Body of Christ. I saw children being carried by their parents, seniors being wheeled up by their children, and every age in between.  Christ’s Bride knows no age, no race, no economic class, no distinction between abled and disabled. We are all the Body of Christ.  We are all seeking together to follow and love God by serving one another.

I am infinitely grateful for my faith community.  They have supported, encouraged, questioned, prayed for, counciled, and pulled me through my Lenten journey.  I am a better person because of the people God has placed in my life.

I know my journey doesn’t end here.  God still has so many things to teach me about simplifying and serving.  My prayer now is for God to give me eyes to see people as He sees them.  I have experienced a glimpse, this past 40 days, of His all-encompassing love for the world, and I want that same love to overflow from me.