Day One: Decide 40 Day Plan is too overwhelming. See you on Easter, God!
Lent is one of my very favorite seasons. 40 days. 40 days to get it together and find my happy place. 40 Days to get back on track. 40 days to try to pull together my purpose for the year. Theologically, this isn't really the way to put it, but it's an accurate look at what goes through my head. Last year, I cut those "stories" (aka terrible soap operas) out that I told you about in my mess. It was fine but I missed the drama of Genoa City and am pretty sure that this was not the point of Lent, at all. I also decided to start some sort of exercise routine. Just a few weeks earlier I could have been heard saying to a friend at work, "I'm going to lose weight, but it will have to be because of diet. There is NO WAY i'm working out." That was the nail in the coffin. I said it and immediately knew that it meant I needed to do exactly what I said I wasn't going to do. So what better time to get healthy than during the period where we prepare ourselves for the death and resurrection of Jesus. Needless to say, I missed the mark a bit with the whole Lent season last year.
Do you see what I just did....I shamed myself. I said that my effort wasn't good enough. I wasn't holy enough, my motives weren't pure enough, I wasn't enough. Friends, stop this now. It was what I could give. I can't find anywhere in the Bible where Jesus says "Your 40 days of lent didn't cut it for me, you blew the whole salvation thing to bits."
This year I left local church ministry just a few days prior to Ash Wednesday (http://www.umc.org/what-we-believe/glossary-ash-wednesday). I have, for most of my life, defined Lenten study, activity and Easter meaning by the church's calendar. Working for the church, I followed the church's services, curriculum and patterns. Walking out the door of local church ministry provided an interesting void in my plans for Lent. For the first time in a long time I found myself faced with my relationship with God. I was no longer responsible for facilitating the discipleship journey through Lent for others, I had to face God for myself. I've always believed in the existence of God. I knew God was there, I knew God in stories but about a year ago when a mentor of mine asked the question, who is God, I realized that I wasn't really sure who God was to me. Who was this God that I taught about in real terms? What did God have to do with my minute to minute life? What better time to start getting acquainted than in the season in which we prepare ourselves to hear the story of the son of God and the sacrifice made on the cross. I heard someone the other day say that they wanted to see, in the very same moment, both the beauty in the cross and the brokenness in which the cross stood. So how did I do that....
Having a relationship with God was not going to be me sitting in a silent room in prayer (if this is your jam go with it but I know i'm not going to be able to start this journey there). It was not going to be tied to a church (been there, done that, need a change of pace in terms of developing my own personal God connection) and with two little children, God was going to have to be very patient about how sidetracked I was going to get in this process. "God, you're important but my two year old climbing to the heavens to meet you in my living room is going to require my immediate attention." Here....here is where I want to give up. I want to be in a relationship with God just like I want to be more healthy but looking at the logistics wears me out thinking about it and I'm out.
But not this year. This year I was going to make a real attempt on 40 days of meaningful time with God. I decided that I feel most connected to God outside. This is an odd statement for a city girl who appears to hate all things outside (pollen, worms, bugs, snakes, heat, cold) but there is something about being under the blue sky and next to the water that gives my heart true peace. I remember laying in our neighbors hammock on nice days when I was growing up. I would talk about nature, my dreams, my mom and looking back on those times, I was most in touch with God at that moment. I was a little girl sitting at the feet of her father talking what seems like nonsense about life and in the process revealing my heart to my father. But I'm not that little girl anymore. I can't lay in the neighbors backyard talking to myself. Neighborhood gossip train here I come. "Mom snaps, talking to herself for hours in neighbors yard." I turned to what I know best, books. Books always fix it for me. They make me happy. I looked for a devotion but that didn't seem like enough. I ran into a book called Christ Walk. 40 days. 40 devotionals. And you choose a journey from the Bible and walk that distance over the course of those 40 days. I was sold.
I was sold and it is hard. The experience has taken me through the drudges of having to make my walk a priority. It's not something I fit in if I can. It's in writing and has some reflection with it so if I cheat someone will look in my book and know (yep, this will give you a glimpse into my personality for extremes-no one is looking in that book but I sure am not going to chance it) so i'm not going to cheat. When I started the walking part was good. I enjoyed being out and in my neighborhood. I walked alone some, I walked with my family or I listened to a podcast while walking. But walking everyday brings on all sorts of challenges. Not only did I commit to walking (my chosen journey equates about 20 minutes of extra walking a day) but I committed to doing this with God. I started by saying "God,God,God..." right out of the garage. I HAVE TO BE WITH GOD. I then decided that was not really relationship so I pulled back and just decided to walk. I found myself pound the pavement with quick hard steps to often walk out the stress of the day. As I walked on and started to feel the tension release and the rhythm set in I started to find my mind wandering to that place long ago in the hammock. I began to tell God my day and my story in my head as I moved through my neighborhood. Some days, I don't want to walk. I blame God, I don't walk with you. But no matter where I am, I find myself in the rhythm of the simplest walk and in rhythm with God. Some days I go to bed, read the few pages of the Christ Walk devotion and feel on top of the world. I gleefully write down the steps I've taken, the miles I've journeyed and the closeness I feel to God. Some days, I don't want to look at my fit bit because my steps have fallen short. Life has happened and I've failed. But this 40 days has taught me that there isn't failure in not walking quite as many steps or in relationship to God. There is life and the real success comes in owning the down days and getting up tomorrow with the hope of celebration.
May you take that journey this Easter week. May you live in and be present in the down, in the death of Christ, in the brokenness on the cross and then, may you find your hope in the new day. At the end of Lent each year the good news is proclaimed, Christ has Risen. But I can tell you, each morning is reminder that the good news, the beauty of the cross, is right here for us today.
Cade's School Party-Meet the Tolin Bunnies!
