This Lenten season I have been working through an amazing and meaningful experience called Beloved, an online journey into Lent and Easter with Jan Richardson leading us. Each day for the past 5 weeks leading into this, Holy Week, I have received by email an image of Jan’s paintings, a poem blessing, a few paragraphs of prompting and insightful considerations, reflective music, and many questions. Deep questions. Soul searching questions. I know I will continue working through them for a long time.
I tell you this because when I chose to undertake this journey, I suppose I did so with an agenda. I didn’t voice it, write it down, or even consciously think about it, but my hidden agenda was that this Lent I would draw closer to God and he would in turn, draw closer to me. I’m not entirely certain either thing happened. Although I wrote about my experience briefly HERE, still, today, I’m feeling rather disconnected and sad and even a little guilty for feeling this way.
Now I could be feeling rather vacant because school is over and I no longer have anything to put my mind to, or it could be because the season of life I find myself in is with young adult children still in the nest but wings ready for flight. It could be because my husband’s new job has taken him to a neighbouring community which makes connecting for coffee or lunch much more difficult these days. It could be my age. But, in concert with all of these is this soulful hole inside me that is God shaped (or so they say when they talk of spiritual longings such as these, and I do believe mine is spiritual) and I haven’t managed to find a lasting way to fill it or to feel like it has been filled.
And, as I with my heart/soul ache messing about inside me always do, I try to make sense of it. I try to solve it I guess, yet I think that may be impossible. I write to God on my prayer blog, I mess about with thoughts, and as usually happens, I write poetry. Rough draft, rough ideas, still working through. You will find my poem posted just below…
INSERT: a short time later after posting this blog, I find, “Many a quiet, ordinary, and hidden life, unknown to the world, is a veritable garden in which Love’s flowers and fruits have come to such perfection that it is a place of delight where the King of Love himself walks and rejoices with his friends.” ~ Hinds Feet on High Places
Which makes me wonder if maybe my ordinary life presenting me with rather ordinary things to do and take care of, maybe my life with quiet times such as this one right now is the one God has prepared for me to blossom in. Maybe I’ve become greedy/thirsty for… busyness… being needed… experience… accomplishment… status… acknowledgement… rather than truly longing for God? I’ve been given my quiet and hidden life, and the hardest thing for me to do is to see it as a gift.
I’d love, I’d REALLY love, to chat about these things with you if you are willing to engage. It can be through email at mygracenotes@gmail.com if you’d prefer. Do you ever have these thoughts, these feelings, and what do you do with them?
Here are some questions that might guide our conversation;
What do you thirst for? Are you spiritually thirsty, or for something else that could be met by making a change?
What steps are you taking, or have taken, to identify what you are thirsty for?
In your relationship with God, do you find your thirsts are quenched? Do some thirsts remain?
I thirst
I thirst.
After all is done
and all is accomplished
yet that the scripture might
be fulfilled, Jesus says
I thirst.
And I come
not to a cross
but to His wellspring
of life, not for the first
time, but again and still
not knowing what it
means to drink. I long
with a black hole
of need, desire for company,
significance, meaning, chat,
answers. My prayers fall
on thin air, his presence,
his ever expanding mystery
perplexes me, angers me
keeps me asking for what
I do not know. He
is often silent, so often
delivered up on tongues
of men in ways I cannot
digest. We sit around
comparing our notes
patting one another
on the back for discerning
his plans and his will
and I critique the words
as they leave my lips. I want
to bite my forked tongue
into silence. I am wet eyed
at the terror and wonder
of this world and most days
I don’t get the point of it
don’t get God, don’t hear
God, don’t feel like I’ve
come closer to God
in imperfect trying. Peace
does not last. Grace
is fleeting. Words
just words, so many words
my head spins, soul
ache remains. No matter
the long years
of limping toward you
the hole is here.
I am bono-fied ~
cause I still haven’t
found what I’m
looking for. And I’m
looking, I am looking
and I’m asking
and I’m here.
Where are you?
Jesus says I thirst.
Jesus does not preach
yet is not silent in his agony.
Jesus states his need,
his simple need
for quenching. He knows
what he will get
yet he exposes his need
that scripture would be
fulfilled. What does
this mean? Only after
they respond, only
after they offer him
the tainted wine, only then
Jesus says
it is finished.
You know what I need, God.
I want to know. I want to ask it
if I could just find it.
The words that mean
I am thirsty.
It Is Finished
28 After this, Jesus, knowing[e] that all things were now accomplished, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, said, “I thirst!” 29 Now a vessel full of sour wine was sitting there; and they filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on hyssop, and put it to His mouth. 30 So when Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, “It is finished!” And bowing His head, He gave up His spirit.
BUDDY BREATHING 