Sitting in the ashes

So it's here again, people. Lent. A time of waiting (or is that just Advent?) Either way, a time for preparation and reflection.

These blogs are meant to be my reflections on the world (because I know people must be super-interested in what I have to say). They're generally fairly positive. But I'm not really sure why I'm writing this because (spoiler alert) I don't have many answers right now.

So here's where I'm at. Daily life feels increasingly like a complex obstacle course that I am ill-equipped to navigate. Some days are okay; some are good; some are downright horrible. I'm pretty joy-less (fear will do that to you) and aware that something needs to change. I know God is real and good and close by, but I don't really understand what's going on here, or why.

A phrase I've heard repeated several times is, "Faith is believing in the darkness what you have seen in the light". And I guess that kind of sums up where I'm at right now. I do have some hope that I can get better again; but on days when it feels like I am losing the battle I wonder how long it has to carry on being like this before I get to be 'normal'. Right now I'm in the Good Friday bit of the Easter story, and I don't know how long it will last. Or how many times I may have to revisit it.

When life is a struggle, when the joy gets sucked out of the beautiful everyday things, when I'm in 'survival' mode, I forget about hope. I'm so consumed by my not-so-pretty circumstances that my hope in what Jesus has won for me gets kind of sidelined.

I titled this post 'Waiting in the ashes' both because of last Wednesday being 'Ash Wednesday' and because it seems to express where I'm at right now. Sometimes I don't have any wisdom or answers. Sometimes there doesn't seem to be a silver lining or moral of the story. Sometimes, it's just hard, and that time is when I guess I have to sit in the ashes and wait, hoping that joy and hope will return.

"Let him bury his face in the dust— there may yet be hope.
I called on your name, Lord , from the depths of the pit.  
You heard my plea: “Do not close your ears to my cry for relief.”  
You came near when I called you,
and you said, “Do not fear.”

Lamentations 3:29, 55-57 NIV

But why is it Good....?

Out of few inevitable things in life - y'know, death and taxes - a lesser known inevitable is the fact that this one-carriage, thrice-daily train across the Welsh border will always smell of wet dog and Monster Munch. But the sky is blue, the sun shines, it's the beginning of the 4-day Easter weekend.

I'm excited about going home, seeing my family, and I am definitely excited for 4 days of rest and my mother's roast lamb.

I'm trusting that this visit, and the beautiful countryside, will be a healing time. All is not well in my heart. Two weeks of goodbyes, packing, cleaning, moving, living out of bin bags and attempting to make sense of a new job have left me bruised and drained. I have nothing to give. And in the hubbub of my self-centred chaos, I barely hear the whisper of Easter approaching. I feel completely disconnected to what it means for me; yet aware that it's for people feeling just like me today.

In a brilliant book I've been reading by Shauna Niequest, she comments that one of the central messages of the gospel is the cycle of death and rebirth; beautiful sunshine and then rain; losses and new beginnings. She also commented that change is hard, and that if we fight it, it can break us. I read that, some weeks ago, sitting in the sun, thinking 'Well... Yeah, course'. What else is new?

And yet, as I stood dejected in my bare, bin-bag-filled room, I realised that fighting against the change, rallying against it in my heart rather than being open to the new things God might birth, was exactly what I had been doing.

So what does this have to do with Good Friday, with God himself taking on all our sin and pain and loss and destroying it? Well, (as ever), it means there's hope. The hope of rebirth. Things can and will get better. Hurdles can be overcome; joy can be clung to. Death is never the end of the story, and though we might wait 3 days or 30 years for the rebirth, the new hope - it always comes.