Joel 2:13 - "Rend your heart and not your garments. Return to the LORD your God, for God is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and God relents from sending calamity."
It's Ash Wednesday. Once again, I am not inside of a church building, but sitting at the computer. My life is at a very different place than it was just a few years back.
I miss the daily encounter with buildings that represent faith, devotion, community, brokenness and healing all at once. I miss being consistently in a place where forgiveness is an expectation, not a seldom considered "thing."
Wherever we are, though, we have the opportunity to "return to the Lord." Today, this year, I am working on a "return" of sorts. I take this opportunity called Ash Wednesday to call myself to pay better attention to matters of the body, mind and spirit. Each needs healing. Each seeks forgiveness. Each makes up the me that can be, that once was and will be again.
Today, I take a look at the inside and challenge myself to open up the wounds, the hurts, the pains and let them bleed - let a river flow through me and heal the flesh that is weak because of the baggage it has been carrying.
I cannot change the external - what others choose to see, what others do to me, what burdens others place on me. I can only change the internal - the response, the desire to see me as I know I can be.
God is gracious and merciful...slow to anger...not quick...but very very slow...and more than that...God is abounding in love...ABOUNDING...and seeks not to destroy and bring pain, but to wrap us up in love and bring healing.
May this God be known to me today, and through all 40 days and beyond. May this God be known to you, too.
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
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