Some songs just "are" Lent to me.

and this one too..



This lent I've felt a kind of pull towards darkness: despair, really, I guess. I hear Marilla in Anne of Green Gables admonishing me "To despair is to turn your back on God!" and I know I need to hear those words and turn...cling to that Rock...bury myself in a loving Father's merciful arms no matter how much the world screams differently (Earthquakes, wars, Tsunamis) and no matter how difficult my personal crosses may be to bear.

My fists have been clenched. Ready to fight. Closed to receive anything--any more pain, but also, any real love.

The daily mass readings today instruct me:
"Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD,
whose hope is the LORD.
He is like a tree planted beside the waters
that stretches out its roots to the stream:
It fears not the heat when it comes,
its leaves stay green;
In the year of drought it shows no distress,
but still bears fruit."
Jeremiah 17

I pray we all unfurl our fingers and welcome His embrace. I pray we see where He bids us do our part, and leave the rest in His most capable, merciful and loving hands. I pray we do not seek our strength in the flesh, but rather have all our hope placed in the Lord. I pray that as we stand up from the prayers we make on our knees that we all carry His wisdom, love and strength past the immediate moment, and into as many minutes and hours we can resist the temptation to re-clench those fearful fists. Pray with me too, my friends?

I feel it is so important to come back here and recognize that a particular book has seeped in through my cracks and I feel I have inadvertently stolen the imagery of its amazing author. As I have mentioned before, 1000 Gifts by Ann Voskamp has had a deep impact on me--a lasting one that is changing how I think and approach certain attitudes in my life. 

Voskamp says "...and I enter the world like every person born enters the world: with clenched fists." 
and "we live with our hands clenched tight. What God once gave us on a day in November slashed deep. Who risks again?" and "What if I opened the clenched hands wide to receive all that is? A life that receives all of God in this moment? How do you do that when the terror tears up your throat and you wear the burn scars of a razed past?"

I think reading this book helped me realize how tightly clenched my fists are...and how much I want to open them to God's grace. I'm so relieved it came to me in my drifting off to sleep place tonight that this powerful imagery is not mine (not that I ever thought it was, I was just pouring out my praying heart!).