From Friday Comes Sunday

It's taken me awhile to face the blank screen, to try to put into words what last week meant to me, and what the past 40+ days imparted to my soul. I'm not sure I have the words, certainly not ones to do any of it any justice.

I can only say that this year's Good Friday was the "best" Good Friday ever...so rich with remembrance, and sharing it all with one of my sons made it all the more meaningful -- serving Communion to each other, breaking the matzo and hearing the "snap" pierce the air and our hearts, knowing that our sins pierced His heart so long ago. Hammering those sins onto a cross (and watching them burn the next night)...and then holding each other close while watching "The Passion of the Christ"...weeping together as we watched Mary pour her love out to her son in his final moments while she remembered playing with him as a young boy...Caleb whispering to me, "I always remember He had a mother, but forget He also had a Mama" as I clung to my now-man of a son, as both his mother and his Mama always.

Plumbing the depths of Good Friday only makes the joys of Easter more glorious, more rich, more majestic. We ushered in the day at midnight, holding candles and listening to Mahler's 2nd Symphony ("Resurrection") at a volume so loud I could practically feel the power of the Spirit rolling that stone away from the tomb all those years ago. Absolutely enthralling. Morning came quickly and we praised at the top of our lungs (with me banging at the piano in the dreaded key of E...ugh) and listened to a most beautiful sermon on brokenness and how we always have a choice --  to either walk down the pathway of despair (à la Judas) or humility (à la Peter). De-spair...without the Spirit...may it never be.

Then during lunch I had the wonderful experience of receiving someone's risk of vulnerability and what I thought was to be a quick meal turned into a lengthy and lovely and deep conversation, and I was changed for the good in hearing this person's story of loss, pain, and redemption.

We all have an Easter story to tell...things in our lives that need to be killed in order to rise again. God breathes life into lost dreams, restores broken relationships, brings new friends to us when old ones pass away or move on. He brings healing to our wounds, applying the warm oil of His comfort to the scars that often burn or itch along the way. He brings beauty out of ashes, praise out of mourning, good out of evil, light out of darkness, life out of death.

I pray I remember this down the road when the fire of last week's experiences  dwindles to faint embers:

Out of Good Friday always comes Easter.

Wrestling

Two years ago, on Good Friday, I wrote the following poem:

cross and candles

paper and pen

sin and shame

poured out in ink

at the place

where grace was

poured out in blood

confessing, lamenting

in my own Gethsemane

tears and forgiveness

flow together

flame touches fear

brokenness burns

each ember dies

ashes

what remains as I rise

hope

freedom

gratitude

joy

and Your deep, deep abiding love

It's humbling to read those words now. I remember exactly what I was dealing with at the time. While I may be older and wiser, I find myself wrestling with the same things. 

Tomorrow night at a Good Friday vigil, I'll write my sins and sorrows on some red paper and nail them to a cross. Then at midnight on Saturday, just before it turns to Sunday, all of the papers will be taken off the cross and burned...in the same pot I burned my own papers two years ago in a private ceremony.

Sometimes I wonder how many papers I'm going to need to burn before I stop wrestling.

"I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall. I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me. Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness." -- Lamentations 3:19-23

Lead Me

Moving toward Friday with a heavy heart, but also glimmers of hope.

This song rose up in my soul this morning.

Lead Me to the Cross
Savior I come
Quiet my soul
Remember
Redemption's hill
Where Your blood was spilled
For my ransom
Everything I once held dear
I count it all as loss

Lead me to the Cross
Where Your love poured out
Bring me to my knees
Lord I lay me down
Rid me of myself
I belong to You
O lead me
Lead me to the Cross

You were as I
Tempted and tried
Human
The Word became flesh
For my sin and death
Now You're risen
Everything I once held dear
I count it all as loss

Lead me to the Cross

Where Your love poured out

Bring me to my knees

Lord I lay me down

Rid me of myself

I belong to You

O lead me

Lead me to Your heart

Palm Sunday

In honor of tomorrow's celebration, I want to share this sonnet by Malcolm Guite, which speaks of how what happened "there and then" is still happening "here and now."

Palm Sunday

Now to the gate of my Jerusalem,
The seething holy city of my heart,
The saviour comes. But will I welcome him?
Oh crowds of easy feelings make a start;
They raise their hands, get caught up in the singing,
And think the battle won. Too soon they'll find
The challenge, the reversal he is bringing
Changes their tune. I know what lies behind
The surface flourish that so quickly fades;
Self-interest, and fearful guardedness,
The hardness of the heart, its barricades,
And at the core, the dreadful emptiness
Of a perverted temple. Jesus come
Break my resistance and make me your home.

For Good

I love this song from "Wicked." It's been in my head all day. 


For Good
I've heard it said
That people come into our lives for a reason
Bringing something we must learn
And we are led
To those who help us most to grow
If we let them
And we help them in return
Well, I don't know if I believe that's true
But I know I'm who I am today
Because I knew you

Like a comet pulled from orbit
As it passes a sun
Like a stream that meets a boulder
Halfway through the wood
Who can say if I've been changed for the better?
But because I knew you
I have been changed for good

It well may be
That we will never meet again
In this lifetime
So let me say before we part
So much of me
Is made of what I learned from you
You'll be with me
Like a handprint on my heart
And now whatever way our stories end
I know you have rewritten mine
By being my friend

Like a ship blown from its mooring
By a wind off the sea
Like a seed dropped by a skybird
In a distant wood
Who can say if I've been changed for the better?
But because I knew you
I have been changed for good

I Am with "I AM"

"...I am not enough, and I am too much at the same time. Not pretty enough, not thin enough, not kind enough, not gracious enough, not disciplined enough. But too emotional, too needy, too sensitive, too strong, too opinionated, too messy....

"...We feel unseen, even by those who are closest to us. We feel unsought--that no one has the passion or the courage to pursue us, to get past our messiness to find the woman deep inside...."

Those words from Captivating pretty much say what my heart has been wrestling with for awhile...maybe all of my adult life. (Even as a young girl, did anyone want to know the real me? Not the straight-A student, not the piano player, not the "good girl"...but ME? *sigh*)

But there is One who sees, who seeks, who loves, who pursues, who knows, who is larger than my mess. No pain is too great that He can't heal. No darkness too thick that His light can't dispel. No longing too deep that He can't fill.

When I draw close to Jesus, I am no longer not enough or too much; I just *am*. I only need to stay there...to "be still and know."

That who I am -- with all of my deepness and mess and questions and faith and ugliness and beauty...all of my paradoxes...all of the "magic that is me" -- can BE with the "Great I AM" is the miracle of the cross.  "I am my Beloved's and my Beloved is mine." (Song of Solomon 6:3) Through Christ I can come into God's presence and be both captivated and captivating.

What a priceless, undeserved gift.

In His Palm

Tonight I had the privilege of praying for a friend, using the ministry of Formational Prayer, something for which I received a fair amount of training a few years ago. I've not had many opportunities to use my training for awhile, however the good people at the Institute of Formational Counseling were thoughtful enough to put together a "cheat sheet" to help we feeble-minded ones remember what to do.

Once we got going, I had that indescribable feeling of being in the center of God's palm -- when I know I'm doing exactly what I was created to do. (I often feel that way when I'm leading worship, too.) It's not that I have *command* of what I'm doing...in fact, it's often quite the opposite. But I know I'm partnering with God to bring about His purposes in the life of the person as I listen to them and gently guide them into His presence. It is more than a privilege, and every single time, I come away filled with awe at how God moves and LOVES. He is so specific to show Himself and speak exactly how and what the person needs to see and hear in that moment. EVERY SINGLE TIME.

To watch God work in someone's life as He goes to the deep places of their soul and brings healing by replacing lies with truth, bringing comfort to pain, erasing confusion with clarity, with an "aha moment" or two as dots are connected...it's a rush like no other. I can't imagine anything better than helping people pursue spiritual and emotional health and wholeness so they can walk in freedom to be who they are meant to be in Christ.

I go to bed tonight exceedingly grateful for this upward/outward/inward healing journey...to be able to help others on their journeys while I continue on my own.

And in this Lenten season, I am ever more grateful for, and mindful of, the wounds that heal us.

He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our sins; the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him. And by His wounds we are healed. - Isaiah 53:5