'Into your hands I commit my spirit' by Sheli Sloterbeek [Holy Week Vigil 2022]

I wept for days. And just when the crushing weight felt like it might reside, it overwhelmed again. In the past, I’d operated under the “pick yourself up and move on” method of life. You know the times when you press forward suppressing all the emotion, all the hurt because it’s easier. But as I wept I felt invited by the Spirit to sit with the grief. To allow myself to feel the deep sadness of her brokenness and our unmet expectations. To not push through to happier days, but sit with the why’s. …

Into the hands of Christ, I commit my sad, angry, frustrated, weeping spirit. Welcome grief.

'It is finished' by Marcie Walker, Black Coffee with White Friends [Holy Week Vigil 2022]

I had a black mother who gave birth to five perfectly healthy babies and lived to tell the tale. Given the disproportionately high maternal mortality rate of black American women that still plagues us today, I am nothing short of a miracle. My daughter is a miracle. Therefore, it shouldn’t be hard at all to believe that Jesus of Nazareth died on a cross given the extraordinarily high rate of crucifixions in His day. However, when I read that He cried out from the cross, “It is finished,” do I believe Him? Is this it? Is this how it all ends? What kind of man is this?

'Into your hands I commit my spirit' by Andrea Bailey Willits [Retrieve Lament 2021]

Often, the middles and even the endings of our personal stories are tragic. They don’t make any sense, in and of themselves. On Holy Saturday, it looked like Jesus was dead for good. That’s why our personal stories need to be situated in a larger story, the one in which we are always safe because God’s purposes ARE prevailing. The Anglican liturgy has helped me re-saturate my imagination in that story. For me, lament has been cleansing. It required grappling with my idols and laying down lies—and welcoming a life that looks, to many people, like a failure. I place my own little story in the story of the community’s suffering, and I think our suffering Savior is there too.

'It is finished' by Karen Hutton [Retrieve Lament 2021]

Jesus spoke the words "It is finished" just before he died on the cross. One of the meanings of these words was that his earthly life was over. Death, a cruel enemy, is the end of all our earthly lives. I am lamenting my loss that will never be undone. I am grieving and angry that I never had a dad. I mourn for all who are mourning, and for every life cut short.

Calling Stories: Katie Fox's strangely hard search for rest in 2020

Calling Stories, Ordinary TimeTamara Hill MurphyNovember 11, 2020guest post, Calling Stories 2020, Callings, vocation, sabbath

Calling Stories: Keri McDonald's reinvigorated passion in 2020

Calling Stories, Creators & Cultivators, Daily Work & Callings, Ordinary TimeTamara Hill MurphyOctober 27, 2020guest post, Calling Stories 2020, Callings, vocation

Calling Stories: Walter Wittwer's vocational crisis, calling confusion in 2020

Calling Stories, Ordinary Time, Wholeness & Healing, Daily Work & CallingsTamara Hill MurphyOctober 21, 2020guest post, Calling Stories 2020, vocation, Callings

Calling Stories: Krista Vossler's need to press in and go easy in 2020

Calling Stories, Ordinary Time, Spiritual Practices, Creators & Cultivators, Daily Work & CallingsTamara Hill MurphyOctober 7, 2020Calling Stories 2020, guest post, Callings, vocation, Discernment

Calling Stories: Amy Willers' need to create in 2020

Calling Stories, Ordinary TimeTamara Hill MurphyOctober 1, 2020Callings, Calling Stories 2020, guest post, Church of the Apostles, vocation, Discernment

Into Your Hands, I Commit My Spirit by Kimberly McHugh [Retrieve Lament 2020]

My grandson lived; he lived for 6 ½ years. We got to know him and love him deeply. I spent many hours leaning over a hospital bed, watching him, and praying for him. We exchanged goofy face pics and sweet voice messages from long distances. He called me Nana, and I can still hear his voice saying, Naa naaa’, in his slightly reproachful tone and grinning face, in response to something silly I did. I wear a shirt he loved because it has rhinestones and sequin embroidery and I can still feel his hands tracing the letters of “Istanbul” on my shirt. And then, quite suddenly Yahya died. I stood by my daughter’s side as she and her husband buried his ashes. …

Where is that peace that passes understanding, where are you, God? And I long for what ancients say can come after the wall: to know God’s sweetness and love, to have peace and rest, and a deep inner stillness. I am almost ready again to say, “Into your hands I commend my spirit”, and I believe when I do, I will pass through the wall to a sweeter knowledge of Him.