Monthly Archives: March 2011

Looking at Lent

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My kitchen calendar tells me this week is the official start of the Lenten season, 40 days of preparation toward remembering Christ’s sacrifice and celebrating his resurrection. I grew up in a protestant church that didn’t practice Lent, but I remember Catholic neighbors who did, and thought I was lucky not to have to give up stuff like they did.

In my 65 years I’ve never participated in Lent. But now I’m attending a new church where a Lenten sacrifice is a choice, and I’m going to try it. The purpose of Lent is to make our hearts right before remembering the crucifixion and celebrating the resurrection. The 40 days represent the time Jesus prepared for his ministry in the wilderness, a time during which he sacrificed eating in an offering of difficult self-sacrifice.

When I was young, our Easter season consisted of spring vacation, which brought us to Good Friday, followed quickly by an Easter worship service and a lamb roast. It was heartbreaking to dwell on how intensely Jesus suffered because of us and for us. We preferred to skip over Good Friday to the happy tune of, “Up from the grave he arose!”

The idea behind Lent is to invest 40 days in a “season of sorrowful reflection,” a period of grieving over Jesus’ death. Three things are important: extra prayer time (focusing on God), fasting (focusing on self-deprivation) and giving (focusing on neighbors).

Like any spiritual discipline, Lent can become legalistic, entered into by rote habit or because someone else forces the issue. But as a way to honor Christ’s sacrifice with a sincere heart, a quiet participation in Lent is an effective thank-offering to our Savior.

For the last couple of weeks I’ve been asking God what he’d like me to surrender as a Lenten gift of worship. Ideally it would be something I do or eat daily, something I’d really miss. Should it be certain foods? Trips to the beach? My ipod while walking Jack?

Today I decided. I’ll give up my favorite daily treat: rice cakes and peanut butter. Although that may sound insignificant, my kids all know I’m addicted to this combo, and they’ve seen me eat 7 or 8 in one sitting. Back when I was trying to lower my cholesterol, I quit rice cakes for several months, a difficult challenge. In the end, red yeast rice pills worked better on the cholesterol, and I went back to my PB and rice cakes.

A Christian’s body is the temple of God’s Holy Spirit. Sacrificing something we physically crave is probably a good way to privately acknowledge that our bodies are not our own and that we’ve bought with a high price, paid by Jesus. What better time to think about this than in the weeks leading up to Good Friday.

When Easter morning finally arrives, many families will begin that day with hot cross buns, but I’ll be celebrating with rice cakes and peanut butter.

“Give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him.” (Romans 12:1)

A Sparkling Day

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As the sun rose and hit last night’s snowfall, the neighborhood burst into beautiful sparkles. But by the time Jack and I walked to the beach mid-afternoon, the sun’s warmth had done away with most of the new snow. Nevertheless, I picked up pretty stones on the now-visible sand and was impressed with how many of them sparkled in the sun, some as impressive as geodes.

Then I noticed rows of tiny icicles hanging beneath pieces of driftwood left on the beach by winter storms. In the sun, these glistening beauties were like rows of glass thermometers with light dancing inside.

When we got home, sunshine through my windows was hitting a crystal piece of art my friend Julie had given me, splashing hundreds of bright rainbows all over the room. When I spun it, it was better than a crystal ball on New Year’s Eve!

The sparkling snow, the stones, mini-icicles and glass art all came to life when sunbeams hit them. Although each was attractive in its own right, when sunshine was added, they changed from ordinary to dazzling.

This same comparison can be made between Nate and me. I’m living an ordinary life here in Michigan, sleeping, waking, eating, doing all the everyday things. Nate is leading a life for which no word of description is good enough. Even “dazzling” doesn’t do it. It’s outside of our human thinking.

I studied the mini-rainbows on my walls and floors this afternoon, wondering if there will be rainbows in heaven, and if they’ll be even more spectacular than the ones I was looking at. In addition to the rainbow mentioned in Genesis, there’s also one surrounding God’s heavenly throne, another encircling an angel, and still another around the Lord himself.

I think of Nate in relation to all this sparkling beauty and wonder what he must think. I knew him well after 40 years of marriage and would have had the right answers on a quiz about what he was thinking in any given situation. But now I can’t say.

The one thing I do know is that some day I’ll see these supernatural rainbows, too, and become acquainted with the sunshine of heaven, which we’re told is actually Jesus. My guess is that his light will transform every heavenly thing into sparkles. With all the jeweled walls of the city and crowns of the saints, my afternoon rainbows will be small potatoes compared to how things will shine in glory. And Jesus himself, as the bright light of heaven, will be the sparkliest of all!

This afternoon I came home from the beach with a baggie of pretty beach stones. Will heaven have a beach? I know there’s a sea-like-crystal there, and I’m wondering, will the stones at the water’s edge be genuine jewels? Maybe the sand, too? And will Jesus be standing there? Oh my…

If that’s all true, I know why God keeps the wonders of heaven beyond our imaginations, because trying to picture them now is taking my breath away!

“The Lord their God will save his people on that day… They will sparkle in his land like jewels in a crown.” (Zechariah 9:16)

Big Shoulders

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During the past 16 months hundreds of tears, if not thousands, have spilled from my eyes, but of course that’s true of other people, too. Nate’s death was my reason, but unnumbered different heartbreaks have caused the tears of others. Our earthly lives will always include suffering, and tears will always flow.

Most of my crying has been done in private. I don’t like to “lose it” in front of others, and somehow my brain accepts that, holding back tears until I can sequester myself. Once in a while, though, it’s heartwarming to have a pal on hand when the dam breaks.

In an email recently, a friend used the expression, “a shoulder to cry on.” That beautiful word-picture describes one person sharing the heartache of another. It’s an image of a firm hug, two strong arms encircling someone whose arms hang limp, and a face buried in a shoulder. It’s warm, tender, compassionate.

God knows human suffering will always be part of this life, and we know it, too. When Jesus was a man, he experienced it daily, all the way through the supernatural torture of the cross. At a time when he was in desperate need, help didn’t come. No one offered a shoulder to cry on, because his choice was to suffer alone. But in doing so, he became our shoulder to cry on for the whole of our lives. It’s a spiritual oxymoron we can’t fully understand, and yet we know enough to realize we’ve benefitted significantly by what he did there.

Should we expect personal suffering? The only good answer is, “Of course!” If Jesus suffered so severely for us, why should we be exempt? And when struggles and challenges come, even severe tragedies, we shouldn’t ask, “Why me?” That question assumes we’re somehow above suffering, which is preposterous. If Jesus had to experience it, why not us, too?

The real question hidden inside our “why me” is, “Why can’t it be the guy down the street? Or the girl at the next desk? Why me?” That question isn’t good either, because it assumes we’re above those people.

The only valid question to ask God when we’re weeping is, “How do you want me to go through this distress/pain/anguish?” That question is excruciating, though, because it accepts the suffering, and none of us want to do that.

But here’s some good news. When God allows awful things to come to us, he becomes our shoulder to cry on, any time we need it. And he offers even more than that. Because he loves us passionately, he’s given us another shoulder-picture. He says we can actually rest between his shoulders. This portrays a strong person carrying a weak one on his back. I think of a young, energetic daddy picking up his tired boy, swinging him onto his muscular back and saddling his hands as a resting place for his weary child. God includes us in that scriptural picture.

Inevitably we’re going to suffer pain, shed tears and feel hopeless, but he’s our Father and invites us to get through it by pressing into him.

“The one the Lord loves rests between his shoulders.” (Deuteronomy 33:12b)