It is Wednesday of Holy Week, and I find myself looking back at Lent in preparation to walk forward into the most ancient and Holiest days of the Christian calendar. Although I prefer Advent to Lent, and Christmas to Easter (the incarnation has such power for me), who can resist a love story that brings life out of death!
Lent this year was not what I expected. I had clear expectations and plans for how things would evolve, and those were quickly up-ended. But instead of getting the Lent I expected, I got the Lent my heart and soul needed. In the process, some things I thought were very important to me (both vocationally and personally) were stripped away under the searing heat of the Lenten desert sun. But this bright light and the uncompromising view it provides allowed me see great beauty in my midst that I had missed - overlooked - minimized. Expectations can blind us from the truth in our midst. What a gift to have those blinders ripped away - painful though that process is.
I was left with a sense of awe as I saw the beauty around me - the immeasurable intangibles that were covered with God's fingerprints, and held the scent of God's fragrance. It was here that I found the invitation to grow more deeply in service of cultivating these immeasurable intangibles - in service of the realm of God, whose values share very little with what society deems important or successful.
As I prepare to walk through the next few days into a different kind of light - the light of Easter morning - I confess some fear and trepidation. Life-time patterns, be they vocational or personal, are difficult to shift. Can I trust that change is possible - that I can release to death and dissolution that which needs to die, and trust that this embryonic new life will be nurtured into full flower? Can I resist the temptation to cling to the familiar and stand with open hands and hearts in God's garden?
No promises - and probably an epic number of stumbles along the way - but the tomb of expectations and past patterns is not my home. God is rolling the stone away - and the garden awaits.
What do you need to release - need to let die - in order to be free to enter the garden? What entombs you? Are you tired of trying to push the stone away? Can you trust God to move the stone?
Walking the journey from desert to garden,
Kim
