One Week

I would love to say that this first week of Lent has just flown by, but that would not be true. In fact, for me, the hours have crawled by, reminding me of my Lenten sacrifices with the gentle ticking of the hall clock. 

The biggest discovery I’ve made without screens is just how much noise they bring into my life. Not just physical noise but emotional as well. Also, I miss people. I know. That sounds insane because ALL those people I miss were behind a screen. How can that even be possible? I guess that’s the gift of social media. It creates the idea of community and friendship when in real life you could not possibly keep up with those relationships. Are they even real? I feel like I “know” them and yet that is a lie. I can’t possibly know someone I have not met in person and spent time sharing my heart with. 

Without them in my daily life I’ve had the opportunity to dig a little deeper into the “why” of things. I have also struggled with time management since Lent began. I realized I am a scroller, a time waster and just a little bit addicted to my phone. Suddenly, I have time to think, feel, read, create, write and whatever else I can come up with and yet, I don’t have much to show for it. 

Yesterday, during my morning prayer, the Holy Spirit gave me a gift. An answer if you will, to this quandary I find myself in. He exposed my heart to the light of the Father’s mercy, and I had quite the revelation. Why was I struggling with time management? Why did this Lenten sacrifice feel so darn hard? Why was I feeling so weighed down and heavy?

I realized that I have fallen back into a very old, very bad habit in the last year or so. I have been running from the BIG feels, the hard situations, the things I cannot fix on my own. I have been stuffing them down and avoiding them using food, social media, and shopping to dull the pain, disappointment, grief and isolation that I’ve experienced.  

Ooof! Wasn’t expecting that little revelation at all. 

I had a moment where my breath caught, and tears were threatening to spill over. I remembered my box breathing and began to feel my calm slowly restore itself with each 4 second hold and breathe. Once my heart rate slowed, my internal dialogue went from calm to accusatory. I was tripping over my thoughts. The guilt simply rushed forward. There was no stopping that old familiar voice… 

“Have you not learned anything? Not facing and feeling those BIG feels is what got you in trouble all those years ago. Mary!! What the heck girl!! Don’t you remember the trouble with your marriage, the destruction of your self-image and confidence and the friendships lost.  It took years to fight your way back from addiction and anxiety. We are not going through that again.”

Sigh. I failed. Again. 

You would think with all I have walked through that it would be impossible for the Great Deceiver to penetrate my resolve to cling to the Cross and rely on the Lord alone to fight for me, to love me and lead me daily. But no. I understood in that moment that I had stopped relying on God and once again, was relying on myself to fix ALL the things. I understood that somewhere in the last year or so, I stopped trusting that God was God, and I am not. I stopped feeling the pain of disappointment and grief and started evading the struggle with whatever vice I could reach for the quickest. 

Have you learned nothing Mary? 

Satan cannot create anything new. He has no new tricks. All he has is what he has used since the fall in the Garden of Eden, lies and deception. I let my guard down and fell for the lie that I was strong, self-reliant, and not in need of anyone’s help to live my best life to take care of my family and friends. Pride goes before the fall and I just faceplanted and it did not feel good.  

I look at others’ lives and dream about what mine could be in comparison. I forgot that my life is mine and will look like no one else’s. It’s not supposed to. It’s as unique as I am. There have been so many changes in the last three years, and I have simply pushed through them without taking the time to figure out what those changes mean for me, for Jerry, for our marriage, family life and professional career paths. I hadn’t taken the time to grieve relatives gone too soon, lost opportunities and difficult relationships. I assumed things and when they didn’t go my way, I tossed those feelings aside and just kept marching up the hill of life. 

Y’all. Running away solves nothing. Stuffing down all the hard feelings and grief only creates more hurt and leaves no room for healing. I knew immediately that I needed to stand still and allow the rain of life to fall without protecting any part of my heart. It was well past time. 

My vices will always be there but so will God and in the end, He has already won the war. My job is to be present, do my best to love my people who are standing right in front of me and allow God to fight for me. The feelings that stop me in my tracks are just God’s way of encouraging me to give God permission to hold space for me and my pain and confusion. In that space, I can process, and make sense of them. I’m able to take the lessons of love and let go of the rest. 

In that space, I’m able to let go and allow God to carry them and in his time, mercy, and grace, to heal, restore and redeem them. God wastes nothing. Not my pain or yours. Not my sin or yours. Not my grief or yours. He uses it all for his glory and our good. That’s because he is God, and we are not. Thank goodness for that. 

As my prayer time came to an end, instead of dread, I felt peace. 

You have five more weeks Mary. You can do this my daughter. With me ALL things are possible. 

Five more weeks to breathe in deep the beauty of Lent, sacrifices and all. Five more weeks, to feel and figure out where the Lord desires me to be. Five more weeks to be present and love my people right where they are, just as they are. 

As the hall clock continues to tick the day away, my peace is being restored and my vices feel farther away by the hour. NO more running. No more self-reliance. No more strong arming my way through all the change. It’s time to feel again. One day at a time. One relationship at a time. One cross at a time. 

For God is God and I am not. I will be still, knowing that He knows what He is about. Now and always. Five more weeks…