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.
Read MoreOften, 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.
Read MoreJesus 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.
Read MoreChrist 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.
Read MoreMy 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.
Read MoreIt 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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