Dark Saturday?

This long Lent is grinding to a close. The only triumphal processions last Sunday, Palm Sunday in the western church, were virtual. Some individuals placed palm fronds on their front doors. I didn’t even make it that far, though I intended to. That about sums up a lot since we’ve been sheltering in place. Way more intentions than actions, it seems, like old dreams, where my feet won’t move.

I hear from some who are bored. Others juggle full-time jobs while helping kids focus on tons of schoolwork passed on by remote meetings with teachers. Many have too much time and perhaps less energy, or no good way to dissipate it. Some are dealing with lost work and pay, others even lost businesses. Many are alone and isolated. A dear friend of mine whose husband is in skilled nursing care is only able to “visit” him on Facetime, whenever the staff has time to schedule her in. He is declining rapidly without her daily visits and her touch.

So much heartache.

No one close to me has lost a life to COVID-19, so far. But that guillotine blade hovers above us all, doesn’t it? Whether you or a loved one is a healthcare worker or first responder (thank you), we all feel the threat.

Even as we grieve the loss of plans, family time together, recreational facilities shut down, difficulty getting food and necessities then going through all the steps to decontaminate everything, we feel the ominous presence of disease and death. While I am glad to see neighbors I don’t know out riding bikes or walking, who are normally off and gone in their cars every day, I can’t help wondering who will still be here when it’s all over.

I’m getting pretty dark, not the way I usually go looking for glimpses of peace. But that is what I see outside the window I’m tired of looking through.

Today as I write this, it is the Saturday after Good Friday, when the Hope of all Hopes bleed and suffocated on the cross. When he died, the day turned as dark as night. He was laid in a cave grave by a few crushed but faithful followers – all their hopes dashed.

Most of his disciples had already scattered, off in complete despair to hide from the Roman soldiers, their only hope to avoid a similar death.

I wonder if his mother and the other women who stood at the foot of the cross and braved his brutal death sheltered together after they took his body down, weeping into each other’s arms as they mourned the loss of everything good in their lives.

Everything they had counted on. Trusted in. Planned on.

Do you feel that, too, as you erase events and plans from your calendar? As birthdays pass without parties? Celebrations for years of work are canceled? Trips put on a very long hold, or given up on altogether?

Does it feel like everything that orients your day has been pulled out from under your feet?

Some days, does the grief get heavier as the day drags on?

Even though Lent is ending, we are stuck in the in-between-time. All creation seems to be holding its breath. (We can’t even get a good rain here in usually very wet Florida!)

Our feet are trapped in a time when normal life is a fading memory and we can’t begin to guess what tomorrow is.

No certainty.

No sunlight on the horizon.

But wait. There’s more. (Did you ever think you’d want to read these words from those annoying commercials?)

There is always more when I stop looking at my feet and worrying about why they won’t move.

I will try one more step, this time looking up.

This time, I will recall the truth I know, and use my imagination to let the light in.

On Easter morning, when the women went at dawn to anoint the dead body of Dashed Hopes, they found what they never expected.

Life beyond anything they’d ever experienced.

So much more than a stable home and income, possessions, even more than family.

They could draw in deeper breaths of life than they’d ever known before. They could sing notes they’d never heard before. They could dance steps they never conceived of. They could love with abandon in a fullness they’d never dared to dream.

And they had the certainty that His plans are good!
https://my.bible.com/verse-of-the-day/JER.29.11/23013?version=116

Ever since He left that grave, He has been bringing life and light to anyone who will look up. Anyone who will respond when he calls their name.

The thief comes only in order to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it in abundance to the full, till it overflows. John 10:10 AMP 
I am the Resurrection and the Life. Whoever believes in, adheres to, trusts in, relies on Me as Savior will live even if he dies; and everyone who lives and believes in Me as Savior will never die. Do you believe this?” JOHN 11:25 AMP 
“Don’t be afraid! I am the First and the Last. I am the living one. I died, but look—I am alive forever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and the grave.   Rev 1:18

Dear reader, I am praying for you, that you will be strengthened as you need it.

Would you like to share what is bringing the light for you?

From dust thou art

On the first day of Lent, Ash Wednesday, I watched rows of people go up to the altar and return with ashes on their foreheads. I pondered the power of that corporate act, all of us in effect proclaiming together that we desperately need redemption, and we know where to find it. I also noticed that the black smudges on each forehead were distinctly different, varied by who was applying it, whether the recipient wore glasses or had bangs, stayed still or moved, probably even the shape of their foreheads. No two ash crosses were the same. While Lent began with a significant gathering, shared by many throughout the western Christian church, it is also very individual, experienced distinctly by every Christian, depending on our interaction with God as well as the details of our lives, histories, and personalities.

Now, suddenly, with the abrupt shutting down of so much of the world to try to contain the spread of COVID-19, we are thrust into a singular observance of Lent, whether we wanted it or not.

We have an opportunity to see it not so much as enforced isolation, but as an invitation to shalom, and a call to a deep time of Sabbath rest.

God the Creator called the first Sabbath, resting after the work of creation. He took time to stop and delight in all He had made. Then he handed the world to the people he made in his image to carry on, to create and care for his world. The Hebrew nation received the Ten Commandments from God to Moses while out in the wilderness, wandering around after God miraculously freed them from bitter slavery and eliminated their enemies. Among the rules that gave identity, structure, and safety to their lives, God encouraged them to establish the rhythm of their lives by setting one day a week apart from their normal activities, a holy day. A day of rest.

During this pandemic, we have the opportunity to get off the merry-go-round busyness of modern life, to stop even the good things that usually fill our days.

We can turn off the news and reject worry or fear (or stockpiling goods).

We are welcomed to let go of the good and seek the best.

This is our chance to really spend time reading the Bible, asking God to speak, just as he did in the cool of the garden with Adam and Eve, to Moses from the burning bush, through prophets and priests and all kinds of people whose words or stories are recorded for us, for our time.

It is an inducement to pray, and to listen.

What is he preparing you for, in such a time as this?

What might your Creator have to say to you, personally?

I resolve

For 2020, I resolve to be here. The last four or five years (yikes, too long!) I’ve been sidetracked with everything from repeat infections, mold remediation in our house, to repeat surgeries, on and on. It seemed like every time I was ready to stand up and “get things done, and get back to my writing,” I was hit with something new, or an old thing with another face. It was like the stories my mother enjoyed telling. Crawling out back in the grass with our goat Minerva, I’d raise my little diapered derrière, trying to stand up and walk. However, Minerva couldn’t resist that big white target. She’d come running and butt me flat on my face, while my parents laughed from the porch.

Being blindsided and flattened is far too achingly familiar.

After working with various doctors and a nutritionist, lots of testing, tons of supplements, a thousand diet changes and increasing sensitives and allergies, I’m improving, but still measuring out my energy with a teaspoon.

2019 was a year for me to go deeper. I read a study from California about how Adverse Childhood Experiences set people up for chronic and life-shortening illnesses. By quick count, I had at least eight major Adverse Childhood Events by the time I was five, a statistic that says I should have died a few decades ago. That depressed me until I realized it means I have fought. I have grown stronger. I persevered, in spite of it all.  And, most importantly, I realized I have never been alone.

I allowed myself to look with compassion at the pain within and found the silent infant alone in her crib while her mother tried to woo her wayward husband back, the toddler still crying, unconsoled in the grass, the shy child terrified by her father’s hands and voice, the young girl utterly alone, caring for siblings only years younger, the world looming cold and threatening. So much shaking fear.

There is much I would like to share with you about this journey, and probably will, but today I want simply to assure you that God is always at work. Though often not the way we would write the script, He is creating something more wonderful than we can ask for or imagine. And this life, this world, is only the beginning.

But I’m not giving up on this life to merely wait for heaven. There is value in living well, living with wholeness, even if we are sick or in pain.

Especially then.

As many others have, this past year a group of us asked God to give us a word for the year. “Abide” keeping popping up for me. I wanted something more active, brighter, and something that would mean I’d spend less time in bed and more time accomplishing my goals. But I have learned this year how powerful it is to abide. It begins with reading his love letter in the Bible and listening. Learning to meditate has helped me slow my racing mind and sit in his bright love.

I have allowed the silent infant to cry out and abide in His loving presence. The toddler learned to abide in His consoling embrace. The frightened and lonely little girl began to run into his arms. I’m learning to really let His love soak deep into every hurting, crippled part of me.

That is abiding.

The word I’m hearing for 2020 is “New.” Once again, it’s not flashy or active sounding, but the time I’ve spent abiding has given me hope that New really can happen in my life.

I resolve to be alert, to be present in my life, to deeply experience feeling chosen, being custom-made to praise Him.

Janie 4th grade
Janie 4th grade Virginia Beach, VA
© Jane Foard Thompson
In the silence of the desert
Wailing seal © Jack H Thompson
Wailing Galapagos seal © Jack H Thompson
Maui waves, JHT
Maui waves

 

“This is what God says, the God who builds a road right through the ocean, who carves a path through pounding waves, The God who summons horses and chariots and armies— they lie down and then can’t get up; they’re snuffed out like so many candles: “Forget about what’s happened; don’t keep going over old history. Be alert, be present. I’m about to do something brand-new. It’s bursting out! Don’t you see it? There it is! I’m making a road through the desert, rivers in the badlands. Wild animals will say ‘Thank you!’ —the coyotes and the buzzards— Because I provided water in the desert, rivers through the sun-baked earth, Drinking water for the people I chose, the people I made especially for myself, a people custom-made to praise me.
Isaiah 43:16-21 MSG

Is there a word that highlights the year ahead for you?