The Grace to Accept
Like many others have expressed in their reflections, the Lenten season has a special place in my being. It coincides nicely with the darkest time of the year, during which I often find myself heavily stressed and depressed. Every year, old wounds and new wounds find themselves out in the open, and God invites me on another journey towards healing.
This past December, I said goodbye to a five-year relationship with my now-ex-partner. The breakup was anything but amicable. I lost a good portion of my community, financial stability, and quality of life, but it had to be done, and I realized later that God had been forming me all year to be able to make that decision. With the miraculous provision and help of friends, I moved into a new space, a space that was, for the first time in nearly ten years, entirely my own. What kind of growth was to come? I was excited.
It's been four months since, and while I can generally say that things have been good, they’ve also been really hard. The adjustment to living without a vehicle in the suburbs has been difficult—small grocery runs take 3x longer than they should, friends need to go out of their way to pick me up if we want to do something together, and I have not been able to be with my climbing community (the little I have left) because I have to leave right after work if I want to get home at a reasonable hour. I have found myself feeling increasingly isolated, burdensome, and frustrated. What am I supposed to do, God? You’ve brought me out of the wilderness into this new home, but now what? Who am I becoming with a rhythm like this? Is growth possible when I’m just trying to stay afloat?
So my spirit grows faint within me,
my heart within me is dismayed.
I remember the days of long ago;
I meditate on all your works
and consider what your hands have done.
I spread out my hands to you;
I thirst for you like a parched land.
The answer, begrudgingly, is yes. Begrudgingly because I want out of my situation now. A car now would make my life easier. It is hard to wait and remain hopeful, especially when you don’t know what the path forward might look like.
But the liturgy today (and the whole Lenten season, really) asks me to recall and to trust in God’s faithfulness to his creation: “They will be my people, and I will be their God.” Jeremiah writes, “I will make an everlasting covenant with them; I will never stop doing good to them, and I will inspire them to fear me, so that they will never turn away from me.” With the coming of Christ, the Kin/dom of God has broken into our realities, as dark, inescapable, and hopeless as they might seem. At a wedding in Cana, in the company of tax collectors, in a boat, by a well with a woman (gasp!), in the house of his friends—Jesus’ ministry and life on Earth embody God’s heart to be with us in the dust of our ordinary and everyday life. It is precisely God’s steadfast love for all his creation that enables us to hope and have faith in the Spirit’s slow but present work in and through us, here and now.
This Lent, like many of the other Lenten seasons of my past, I’m slowly coming to accept that despite God’s providence and guidance to me not too long ago, I might not receive direction or an answer or know what I’m to do (or become) next. So I’ll just have to wait for relief, whatever that might look like, and remain faithful to “this next step, this next breath, this next choice.” And in the meanwhile, I will pray with the Psalmist: “Answer me quickly, Lord… do not hide your face from me… let the morning bring word of your unfailing love, for I have put my trust in you. Show me the way I should go, for to you I entrust my life… Teach me to do your will, for you are my God; may your good Spirit lead me on level ground.”
And whatever it may be, may it be as you say… and may you give me (and perhaps, us) the grace to accept it.
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