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

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

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Lament Stories, LentTamara Hill Murphyholy week, guest post, It is finished, Holy Week Vigil 2022
'I thirst' by Amy Barker Willers [Holy Week Vigil 2022]
'I thirst' by Amy Barker Willers [Holy Week Vigil 2022]

I want some satiating, magical potion to restore those years to me.

Jesus’s last words “I thirst” remind me that He - the most satiating, life-giving, Living Water - also thirsted. What did he thirst for, hanging there on the cross? In the midst of excruciating pain, I find it hard to believe those words were merely asking for a drink. Maybe He spoke those words for me so that I would remember that my Savior also felt pain and grief. And that He knows my thirst and weeps with me in the midst of mine.

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'My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?' pt. 2 by April Swiger [Holy Week Vigil 2022]
'My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?' pt. 2 by April Swiger [Holy Week Vigil 2022]

As our family learned how to navigate grief, bellies around us continued to swell with life, and children were adopted seemingly with ease. I started to become acutely aware of the obsession in Christian culture with having lots of children (more equals blessed). I began to reckon with the fact that we had one child, and we may only ever have one child. Did that mean God wasn't pleased with us? Was there some sin we weren't aware of that He was punishing us for?

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Lament Stories, LentTamara Hill Murphyholy week, Why have you forsaken me, Holy Week Vigil 2022
'Woman, behold thy son! Son, behold thy mother!' by Michelle Van Loon [Holy Week Vigil 2022]
'Woman, behold thy son! Son, behold thy mother!' by Michelle Van Loon [Holy Week Vigil 2022]

But I’ve also seen what it looks like when true community is forged from shared surrender to God, and it has ruined me for ersatz versions. Compelled by the self-giving love of Jesus, it always looks just like one disciple opening the door to another to welcome them in fully and completely as family – because in him, that is what we are meant to be for one another.

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Lament Stories, LentTamara Hill Murphyholy week, Retrieve Lament 2021, Behold your son / mother, Holy Week Vigil 2022
'Father, forgive them' by Tamara Hill Murphy [Holy Week Vigil 2022]
'Father, forgive them' by Tamara Hill Murphy [Holy Week Vigil 2022]

Dear friend,

This post kicks off a week of guest posts to help us keep vigil with Jesus, each other, and our own hearts through Holy Week.

Jesus gave us a litany of last words, known as the Seven Last Words of Christ. The deathbed words of the Suffering Servant provide a framework for Holy Week. Each day between now and Resurrection Sunday, seven friends will share their own stories to help us retrieve lament and to keep vigil with Jesus. Their stories have helped form my understanding of cruciform suffering and I believe they could also encourage you too.

Each short story will be paired with an image, a Scripture passage, and a prayer. This year I’ve curated a series of contemporary icons from Ukrainian iconographers. As we hold space for each other’s stories, we take shelter under the outstretched arms of Christ for every story of suffering around the world. In order to lean toward the suffering in Ukraine, one of our storytellers is giving us the opportunity to send help to two organizations on the ground in Ukraine and neighboring friendly countries, and to receive a special thank you gift from Michelle Van Loon in return.

Thank you for sitting with me in my own story today. May you listen with an open prayerful heart and know the shelter of Christ for all that you lament this week.

Peace,

Tamara

p.s. Would you invite a friend to join us to read the stories with us?

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Encouragement for you this Ash Wednesday
Encouragement for you this Ash Wednesday

Welcome to a Lent daybook for these 40+ days of prayerful repentance.

Is this your first time to practice Lent? Here's a simple introduction.

Look: A house sits covered by a deep blanket of ash from a volcano erupting on La Palma, in Spain's Canary Islands, on October 30. After 85 days and eight hours of destruction, the Cumbre Vieja volcano in Spain's Canary Islands finally finished erupting on December 13, 2021. The volcanic eruption - sending lava into neighborhoods and raining ash downwind - was the island of La Palma's longest active eruption on record, according to Canary Island government officials. Emilio Morenatti / AP - Source

Listen: From the Dust, Paul Zach - Lyrics | Spotify | YouTube

Read: Isaiah 58:1-12; Psalm 103; 2 Corinthians 5:20-6:10; Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21

Pray: Book of Common Prayer, Collect for Ash Wednesday

Do: Attend an Ash Wednesday service

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

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

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'I thirst' by Aimee Sylvester [Retrieve Lament 2021]
'I thirst' by Aimee Sylvester [Retrieve Lament 2021]

Christ experienced trauma, and He never tries to dress that up; I resonate with His exhausted two-word prayer "I thirst". The precious ones in Christ's family who encourage me to re-name myself have shown me that my feelings weren't designed to be brushed aside or toughed out, they can be invitations to hearing God more clearly.  My angry impatient wrestling with God will never drive Him away; somehow it makes Him move in closer.

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'My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?" by Natalie Murphy [Retrieve Lament 2021]
'My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?" by Natalie Murphy [Retrieve Lament 2021]

My God, My God.

Not just any old God, but my God. They had a history, he and David. We had a history. This wasn’t the first time I cried out to him, but it was the first time I heard nothing in return. I cried all night. I found a golf pencil and scribbled “God, God, God” on my intake paperwork. Could he not hear me? Was there a glitch in the signal? Were these walls too thick? Literal padded walls, that must be what it took for him to finally just give up on me.

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'Woman, behold thy son! Son, behold thy mother!' by Todd Hill [Retrieve Lament 2021]
'Woman, behold thy son! Son, behold thy mother!' by Todd Hill [Retrieve Lament 2021]

It was almost a year after Jacob’s sobering request that I saw him for the last time. Rachel and I lifted his frail body into a hospital bed that had been set up in his bedroom. Jacob was unable to do it himself. I stopped and rested my hand on his head, covered with stubble that had begun to grow. Rachel went about the business of organizing the space for Jacob while calmly giving the kids instructions about how they should play in the room where daddy was resting. Of course, Jacob, it will be my great honor to help take care of your wife and children.

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