HEARTBREAK

yesterday morning i was detoxing from the frenzied activity of Holy Week by taking a long, sunlight filled walk to little mountain. the trees are beginning to bloom and the lilies in the ponds are beginning to come up...this world is so beautiful. izzy and i got back from our walk to hang for the day...
i started simply trying to decide how best to chill out - should i make coffee and THEN read my book or just start reading and make coffee later (usual sabbath questions). while i was debating this silly part of my day, the phone rang and it was my dear friend, amber's, dad. the first thing he said was, "david passed away this morning." david is amber's husband who has been one of beau's best friends for several years and has become a dear friend to me as well. david was diagnosed with leukemia three weeks ago and has dealt with every possible complication of chemo and various infections.
with those words - passed away - everything fell in fragments out of my brain and into my heart..."NO....NO....NO...." was pretty much all i could say. but despite my best efforts to disassemble the message, to reject it and have it come back differently, the fact persisted - david was gone.
calling beau was just as horrific as hearing it for myself - to hear the recognition of grief in his voice...it is hard enough to accept a difficult truth in your own heart, but to watch it wound those you love is unbearable.
david was only 26. he leaves behind a beautiful wife (widow at age 23) and two sweet little girls - alaina, 3 and tia, 14 months.
david was fearless in the face of this illness and confident in God's grace and plan. i know that He is in perfect peace and joy and that all the mysteries of the universe are unlocked for him. yesterday, in between tears, i kept marveling at all the answers to questions he knows now...of how perfectly he is experiencing Love now...
but none of those thoughts take away the pain of his loss. so today we mourn deeply the loss of life too young...we will miss you dave.
MAY ANGELS GUIDE YOU IN.
Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy.

THE BIG DEAL

this morning at my pastor's text study, the intern at a local church (a brilliant young seminarian from berkeley lutheran) referred to Holy Week as "the big deal." she spoke of how - even for non-liturgical churches - the "big deal" is of upmost importance. it is something that bonds us...as Christians...to the resurrected Christ and to one another. so...here's to the BIG deal...may your journey to the cross and then to the empty tomb be filled with repentance, hope and joy. PEACE!

HOW DOES MY GARDEN GROW

i spent most of the day (until i was forced in by the rain) with my old friends...weeding, primping, and caring for all my beautiful plants. the daffodils are round one and doing a fabulous job displaying their God given yellow gorgeousness...on deck are the tulips - which must have something beautiful planned as they are all out of the ground and stretching toward heaven...everything else is just starting to bud...i will post "real" pictures of the garden soon.

PASTORS' WIVES

one more mention of pastors' wives and somebody gets hurt.

as if i wasn't excited enough about district assembly...grrr....

INSPIRED

i am so glad that there are others struggling and dealing with lack of volunteers and too many meetings and not enough hours in the day to kiss husbands while trying to care for a church...it inspires me to know that i am not alone...laboring in this vineyard...that i am not the only 30 year old helping to shoulder an entire congregation's worth of stuff while writing district reports and leading text studies.
God...thank you for reminding me that i am not alone.

CLOSER

i feel - as always - that i have failed at lent. for here i am, busy beyond belief...carefully and dutifully fulfilling my lenten obligation with little fervor. all the while holding bible studies, running to the hospital, cramming, cleaning, and running... i had a lot of big plans for intimacy with the One, of revelation and depth, but most have fallen off the wagon.
i am so thankful that God's big plans have been accomplished...my only prayer is that as i experience the passion, i come closer...

MY LONG LOST FRIENDS

they are here...poking their heads bravely out of the earth...they seem to know, as does my dog's winter coat, that spring is coming.
my lenten rose is also blooming (picture above)....what a clever little rose...lent has only just begun.

LENT

my right thumbnail still has a faint grey line from the ashes of ash wednesday. no manner of scrubbing and scraping could get those last few particles out...they linger to remind me of the foreheads that i touched. it is always so intense to mark the heads of the congregation. these are not people who are anonymous to me - they are people that i LOVE - it is exceedingly difficult to remind them that they are dust and to dust they will return. and, most likely, when they return to dust it will be me who says the last prayer over them, me who touches that same forehead with anointing oil, me who says the final amen before their coffin descends into the earth.
it is with great mourning and yet great hope that i approach lent...for we NEED Christ so desperately...and i know that my only hope...the only hope of my precious congregation comes in the resurrection of Jesus. so, although difficult to mark the foreheads of the big ones and little ones with the ashen cross, i can give them REAL hope - hope that will never disappoint.

therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us. -Romans 5:1-5

may God remind you every day of this season of your deep need of Him.

STUPID THEOLOGY

my husband just informed me that there are christian groups who are claiming that heath ledger died tragically at the age of 28 because he played a gay man in brokeback mountain. this is the stupidest theology i have ever heard...
as a pastor, people are constantly coming to me upset because "how can bad things happen to good people..." everyone has countless examples of wonderful people who were stricken with horrible maladies...
interesting how quickly some will interpret the most basic and universal consequences of living in a fallen world - death, sickness, crazy and unintentional overdoses of sleeping medication for a depressed and tired young man - as God's judgment against the individual when God has already cast His final judgment on humanity...and His arms were nailed open to do so...proving God's love.
IF God were going to kill someone for something (which in the free will He has given us does not come into play) i think we would need to look at someone who has perpetrated ACTUAL evil (i'm thinking along the lines of child rape, murder, perhaps genocide) and not an artist who was simply holding a picture of our culture in front of our eyes.

LIFE THAT IS LIFE

i've been sick for two days...not having more energy than what i needed to squeak out the things i've HAD to do - like go to the bathroom or let the dog out or do the one or two things for church that could not wait...
sickness flattens and humbles me - it reminds me how blessed i am most of the time and how often i take it for granted.
so tonight i go to sleep hoping that tomorrow i will feel better...that my body will not ache and my throat will not feel as though a blow torch has seared it....tomorrow morning i may awake and have the energy to take my beautiful dog for a walk and enjoy the sunshine that got mistakenly sent to the light starved northwest in january (or perhaps this sunshine has been a mercy...)...perhaps all light and life is nothing but mercy.