Lately - and this happens all too frequently - I've been, well, upset. Unhappy. Dwelling upon injuries real and imagined. And I was so wrapped up in feeling bad, I withdrew....from God, from prayer, from my church, even from my family.
That's smart. (NOT.)
And then, someone posted something on FB about a possible stock market "correction," read "disaster/end of the world as we know it," anyway, a potentially HUGE drop in the stock market (up to 90% - gah!) that is sure to happen because of XYZ reasons.
Well. Take my sourpuss, isolated self, mix in a good dose of paranoid fear, and you get....misery.
Thankfully, the Lord hears my prayers, even when they're skewed or ridiculous or whatever. He allows me to slowly dig my own pathetic hole of fear/worry/anger/depression until finally, I realize how sad and lonely I am...and how it takes just one thing to turn this all around: ME. It takes me, repenting of living in fear and not trusting the Lord; me, realizing that hiding away from people is just sad; me, turning back to Him to say, "I'm sorry. I pushed you away. I chose to live in fear/worry/anger/depression instead of in Your light."
And He is gracious to forgive, every time. And He broke the chains I had put upon myself - the deceptive chains of depression, anger, worry, and fear - and instead he filled me up with His peace, which is otherworldly and inexplicable.
Are there things coming that will be hard to take?
Yes.
Do I know what these are?
Probably not. But even if I did, would knowing in advance forestall any of it? NO! So: best to live in the moment, in the eternal Now.
I choose Peace. I choose Him. I choose to live in God's Light, and not in the devil's fear. I choose to release anger and breathe in love, breathe out forgiveness.
This past Sunday was Easter. I wish I were happier about this, but honestly I felt - have been feeling - really disconnected from Easter this year.
It's probably because I was raised Catholic and we always did this big Lenten thing. There was the whole "40 days of Lent" where you were supposed to give something up, to reflect upon Jesus' sacrifice for us (I mean, seriously, NO comparison here: he gave up his LIFE for us, and all I could ever think to give up was chocolate), and of course the big Lenten kickoff is Ash Wednesday, when everyone would go to Mass (the service was blessedly short) and you would get ashes put on your forehead in the shape of a cross, and it somehow made you special. Then, in the buildup to Easter, the week before Easter the church would have a special ceremony called Palm Sunday, which was supposed to show how the people of Jerusalem welcomed Jesus into town by throwing their coats or palm fronds in His path. What it meant for us in church was the kids would get palm fronds and we would all stand around with them, waiting for the priest to come in; and just before he came down the aisle (flanked by altar boys carrying things they use during Mass - those little hand bells, or the censers to put out candles, or the "gifts" of water and wine), all us kids would wave our palm fronds around. Maybe we put them on the floor but I don't remember that. I just remember waving the palm fronds. Anyway, all the palm-frond-waving sure was a nice break from the regular order of Mass, so I kind of liked it, even if I didn't think little kids should be allowed to hold the palm fronds, only big kids.
As an adult, after I became a Christian for real, I started going to a Methodist church. And much to my great joy I found out the Methodists did the whole Lent thing, too. But now I could participate as an adult who actually wanted to be there - wanted to go to Ash Wednesday, wanted to be told the significance of the ashes, wanted to give something up for Lent to participate (in some very small way) in Christ's sacrifice. I craved all of this. I loved that we honored Lent and celebrated Easter together, as a church.
But God didn't keep us at that church. I never was committed to one particular branch of Christianity anyway - I felt it was more important to be a Christian than a Catholic or a Methodist or a member of whatever church - so I didn't mind going into a new church tradition. When we started attending our new church we were bowled over by the great music, the fiery preaching, and just how everyone there was really authentic. I was happy. Husband, the drummer, was happy. The kids were mostly along for the ride - whatever, that was fine.
Then came our first Easter at this church. I realized pretty quick that the usual trappings of Lent were not going to be found here. I mentioned this to Pastor on a Wednesday night before Bible study. He said he would like to know more about it, and would I please be prepared to discuss Lent next Wednesday? Um, yeah, of course!
That week I looked up several things about Lent. Cobbled together this information with my own recollections of Lent. So the following Wednesday, when Pastor asked me to talk about Lent, I was prepared. I could talk about why 40 days, why give up something, Palm Sunday, and that this was no longer just a Catholic thing anymore. Pastor was kind. He said he, too, had done research on Lent that week. He really liked a lot of what he read. But since "there's nothing scriptural about it," we would not be participating in Lenten activities as a church.
This year, I was hoping to get my Lent on with the Catholics. I saw there was an Ash Wednesday service at noon, and I was truly excited to have the chance to go to Mass and get the ashes. And, I wouldn't have to miss my church's Wednesday night Bible study either. Hooray! Unfortunately, a quick phone call to the Catholic church let me know the service was not a mass, it was just "distribution of the ashes," with the Mass to be done later that night - at 7:00.
There was no way I could go to Mass and make it to my church for Bible study on time. And since my church had youth group on Wednesdays, too, I couldn't skip going to Bible study; my (one) youth-group-attending kid would not be happy about that.
So no Ash Wednesday service for me. No ashes on my head. No Mass. And of course, there would be no Palm Sunday service for me, either.
Why bother, then? Why go through any sort of Lenten-type sacrifice if no one else was, either?
This Easter has not been the celebration I would've liked for it to have been. I know it's me. I know I could've done, well, lots of things differently - but I was just feeling so sad and left-out from all the rituals....I shared this with Husband, who said that maybe next year I should plan on going to Ash Wednesday service at the Catholic church, and to a Palm Sunday Mass, too. Which will be possible since our own church now has two services so I'm sure I can still make one of ours and then get to the Catholic church after. Or something.
But I'm still left feeling - well - well - down
. I didn't even listen to "Jesus Christ Superstar" this season. (I spent many, many hours as a child playing the records and following along with the song book. I had ALL the songs memorized.) If Easter isn't set aside as a special day - and it SHOULD be! - then it's just like any other Sunday.
Don't get me wrong. It's not that I don't like our Sunday service. I do. I love it! I look forward to worship every Sunday, and I am really digging going to both services for now. But. Easter should be the most important service of all. It should be special. It should be somehow set aside. It should have some difference, some pomp-and-circumstance, some effort made to show that Easter is, quite simply, the most significant celebration we as Christians have. Because it represents the very most fundamentally important thing about our faith: that "while we were yet sinners," Christ died for us, and then He was resurrected.
Worship is great. It really is. And our worship, in parti, in p is realparticular, is supremely awesome. But Easter should be more than just worship.
I miss Lent. I miss Palm Sunday. I miss participating in these things as a church.
That doesn't mean I am going to change churches anytime soon. I wouldn't trade our awesome weekly worship for a church service that lastsonly takes one hour and leaves me unfulfilled. But still, I am sad that this is one aspect of church life I am missing out on. But stills me rituchurchandfor awesAt this
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