Message from Pastor Karyn for Mar. 2021
I was sad going into Ash Wednesday, missing you all and missing the rituals of the day whose meaning is made stronger by your presence. It was so strange, even after 11 months, to stand staring at empty pews just beyond the camera. I was sad going to sleep on Ash Wednesday, happy to have seen some of you in person, but it still wasn’t quite right.
“This active resting means being actively in prayer, using the tools
I have been given to enter into a deeper relationship with God. ”
A friend of mine recently reflected on a Lenten season after a year of Lent. Which this past year has been, really. A year of fasting, a year of life in a minor key, a year where little has felt normal, life during a pandemic is a life lived never quite knowing what the next day will bring. Even with most of us settling into new routines, it seems like just when we get the hang of that new routine, we find ourselves having to adjust once again because there is new information to be had. I find myself quite resistant to a “normal” Lent this year. I am not fasting from anything, and I am not “adding” something. This past year has done enough of both of those to last for a while. What my heart desires the most is to rest, to rest in God, to trust in God more deeply so that, in my sadness or my quasi-routined life, or my tiredness, or my joy in creating, or my amazement at the animals that walk past my window, I know peace. So I will rest this Lent, I will rest in God’s grace as I pray and as I read, I will rest in God’s grace as I listen and as I speak, I will rest in God’s grace as I work and as I play. I will rest. And in the resting, I suspect I will see God more clearly and the Holy Spirit will show up to stir my heart with reminders of Jesus’ words and actions.
This resting isn’t a passive resting, though.Practically speaking, I still have to work and live and stuff, so I won’t be laying in bed every day. This active resting means being actively in prayer, using the tools I have been given to enter into a deeper relationship with God. To write my prayers down and weave them into the prayer wall I have been gifted with. To reflect on the words of others each morning as I set my intentions for the day. To take a word and allow it to shape conversation with my family so that together we can ponder what God is doing. Throughout it all is woven a giving over, a bending and a deep desire to rest in whatever God reveals.
Perhaps as we continue to journey toward Easter, you would consider that after this year of Lent, God is inviting you into a time of rest from what is burdening you so that you may find peace.