For many of us, life has a way of becoming a living Lent. We set out with good intentions and hope they are worthy, but the Lord in his mercy and also in his role as Father says, “I have a different plan.”¬
And so Lent hits us. What we offered as our Lenten sacrifice has been one-upped by Jesus as he calls us to fully embrace this desert time. We have our marriage, our children, families, work and friends, and living fully in any one of those areas can be both beautiful and ever so challenging.
For some, it is an uphill climb with many obstacles along the way. The dryer broke, the brakes need replacing, grandma is in the hospital and Johnny started a fight at school, all in the same day! For others, it is like a tsunami that wrecks everything we have strived for in just one conversation and we stand looking at the rubble crying out, “What more, Lord?”
Have pity on me, LORD, for I am weak; heal me, LORD, for my bones are shuddering. Psalm 6:3.
Many of us might feel this way as we walk along our Lenten path; a suffering so great that your bones are shuddering, where your body is so weak that even the depths of your soul cannot convince you that you will make it out OK. Or, perhaps a weariness that makes you feel like you are dragging through your days.
You are not alone. Open your Bible to the Psalms and you will find your people. You will find stories conveying the very emotions we all struggle with — emotions that bring us to rejoicing, praise and worship, and ones that cut to the very core of our brokenness, weakness and sorrow. Knowing that saints and prophets like King David, Jeremiah, St. Peter and even Jesus have pondered the cup that has been passed to them or that they chose and wept at its bitterness and pain. Lent can feel like that.
My soul too is shuddering greatly — and you, LORD, how long? (Psalm 6:4)
Reading this passage reminds me of how many times I have cried out to the Lord; how much more can I take? Do you not see how my heart has been pierced so many times. There is no flesh left! How long, Lord? How much more must I endure? And that crying out, while torn from our souls, does not produce the relief we seek. We continue in the purgatory of our Lenten journey.
I am wearied with sighing; all night long I drench my bed with tears; I soak my couch with weeping. My eyes are dimmed with sorrow, worn out because of all my foes. (Psalm 6:7,8)
The other night, as I sat upon the staircase, before our home altar where our images of the Sacred Heart are hung, my very dear place of prayer, I sat and wept. I am learning to let go and parent in a very different way our older children who have left our nest and are creating a life of their own. I think of the choices I made as a young adult; choices the me of today would greatly disagree with, choices that turned me away from the heart of Jesus and yet God in his steadfastness never left my side. And still I weep bitterly at the loss of the life I thought I was creating for them. Watching someone choose the opposite, if not reject all of what you have taught them is good, true, and just hurts profoundly. It causes worry. It can feel like a rejection of your very self. And yet scripture calls us back to our identity. Even in the middle of all the suffering, when our hearts are weary with strife, we find ourselves turning back to the Lord in praise. We stand strong in who we know the Lord to be. It is in our DNA as Christians.
Away from me, all who do evil! The LORD has heard the sound of my weeping. The LORD has heard my plea; the LORD will receive my prayer. (Psalm 6:9-10)
The juxtaposition of both suffering and praise is a truly Christian notion and at times I have pondered it as one who feels of two personalities. I remember one moment of parenting spent in a Ronald McDonald House room while my daughter was in emergency surgery, pacing, crying with tears soaking my sweatshirt, and playing praise music and singing at the top of my lungs. I truly felt like I had multiple personalities in that moment, but 10 years later, I look at that moment as a pivotal moment of my Christian journey. It is the moment I chose to trust God in the storms of life. Psalms 27:14 reminds us to “Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; yes, wait for the Lord!”
We have visions of the life we want to build for ourselves and we offer it to the Lord. But the reality is that the Lord has visions of the life He wants to build for us and that life requires work. It requires surrender and it is completed with trust. The world today and indeed our human nature leans toward comfort. We are blessed with many of these moments throughout our life; visions of what awaits us in Heaven. I’m coming to understand that Lent, or life for some of us, as gray and bone weary as it may feel, is not without a purpose. Living in praise and trust for the one whose plan is greater than ours is really the only way as blessed is the man whose trust is in the Lord. (Psalm 40).