from ashes to life

On the eve of the lent season I find myself full of anticipation...the wonder of this time of letting go and therefore creating space to receive something new. There's also tension with season...to enter into the rhythms of Lent requires honest reflection, confession, humbleness, surrender, sacrifice, risk. Am I really willing to name what are the vices in my life, that are hindering me from living fully in God's calling? Logically, giving up things like TV, facebook or sugar seem trivial. That's why I think it's important to not just see this as an act of giving up a vice, but taking in something new, something holy. To move from being creatures of comfort to conscious, intentional people. To know myself as Christ sees me, hopes for me to be.

So my commitments for this season are...no TV. Cliche, yes. But I realize that I don't create enough space to live in silence, to read books (I have a looming stack of books that are calling my name) and to write. Especially since Mike's death I know I fill the silence in our home with the TV. And since one of my 2012 hopes was to spend more time reading and writing this will hopefully eliminate a barrier to that.

Along with this my church provides us with a great daily Lent calendar that I hope to explore. Mars Hill also goes through a book each Lent season. This year we will explore the book of Ruth. I will be meeting with a group of exceptional women to dig deeper into this text. Again full of hope and anticipation for what will be exposed in my own heart and how God will redeem me...

I'm also curious how I may relate to the book of Ruth now that my story mirrors her journey. The identity of widow is one that is still both foreign and also sacred.

Here's a psalm I've returned to and been thinking through as I step into Lent...

Psalm 139 (the message)

A David Psalm

^1-6 God, investigate my life; get all the facts firsthand.
I'm an open book to you;
even from a distance, you know what I'm thinking.
You know when I leave and when I get back;
I'm never out of your sight.
You know everything I'm going to say
before I start the first sentence.
I look behind me and you're there,
then up ahead and you're there, too—
your reassuring presence, coming and going.
This is too much, too wonderful—
I can't take it all in!

^7-12 Is there anyplace I can go to avoid your Spirit?
to be out of your sight?
If I climb to the sky, you're there!
If I go underground, you're there!
If I flew on morning's wings
to the far western horizon,
You'd find me in a minute—
you're already there waiting!
Then I said to myself, "Oh, he even sees me in the dark!
At night I'm immersed in the light!"
It's a fact: darkness isn't dark to you;
night and day, darkness and light, they're all the same to you.

^13-16 Oh yes, you shaped me first inside, then out;
you formed me in my mother's womb.
I thank you, High God—you're breathtaking!
Body and soul, I am marvelously made!
I worship in adoration—what a creation!
You know me inside and out,
you know every bone in my body;
You know exactly how I was made, bit by bit,
how I was sculpted from nothing into something.
Like an open book, you watched me grow from conception to birth;
all the stages of my life were spread out before you,
The days of my life all prepared
before I'd even lived one day.

^17-22 Your thoughts—how rare, how beautiful!
God, I'll never comprehend them!
I couldn't even begin to count them—
any more than I could count the sand of the sea.
Oh, let me rise in the morning and live always with you!
And please, God, do away with wickedness for good!
And you murderers—out of here!—
all the men and women who belittle you, God,
infatuated with cheap god-imitations.
See how I hate those who hate you, God,
see how I loathe all this godless arrogance;
I hate it with pure, unadulterated hatred.
Your enemies are my enemies!

^23-24 Investigate my life, O God,
find out everything about me;
Cross-examine and test me,
get a clear picture of what I'm about;
See for yourself whether I've done anything wrong—
then guide me on the road to eternal life.