Saturday, March 30, 2013

i love my rescue dog  (pictured on our dining room table doing the wrong thing). He's a nut but i love him because he's such a nut. He got into a mess and won't jump off the table because he doesn't trust.He has issues but don't we all?   i'm off topic, so let's get to the point.  

Lent began  the day before Valentines Day this year.

i remember this because February 13, 1991 was Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent, too.  i remember that Ash Wednesday because Felix and i returned home from church to a ringing telephone.  My father was on the line and he told me my mom had a heart attack, was in the the hospital and wasn't expected to make it.  Felix had spent the previous night awake volunteering at a shelter for homeless men but we hopped in our car and headed to RI.  By the time we got there my mother had died.  That year, it seemed as though the sun stopped shining.  It was a long cold winter and a very late unremarkable spring.  2012 was also a terrible year for my family and 2013 wasn't promising to be a lot better, except there were two bright spots in my weeks: Tuesdays and Thursdays. Tuesdays we were doing a year long Ignatius retreat with 14 people and a Jesuit priest.  Thursday nights i attend The Body of Christ prayer group.  Make no mistake about this, the people in these groups are the body of Christ.  i began reading scripture and getting to know Jesus as the person who came to Earth for me. Now February was no banner month for me, but i had a hand in some (not all) of the crap i was going through.  "When you're going thru hell, just keep going." i was told. i  had the support of some great people in both of those groups. We prayed together and shared our reactions to what we were reading in scripture.  Our priest kept reassuring me that eventually i'd get it.  i'm a slow study BUT at some point this week, it dawned on me.  Who am i to whine and cry because life hasn't turned out the way i thought it would.  The son of GOD came down to Earth for me.  He healed the blind, lame, deaf and sick.  He raised the dead.  He preached to thousands and fed them. And what happened?  His friends left him, the people he came to save turned on him, had him arrested, tortured and crucified.  Who am i to complain?  How many times have i turned my back on friends, coworkers, family and God.  Unlike the people in Jesus' time i know of the resurrection. Like my dog standing on the dining room table, life has beat me up a bit.  However, tomorrow is Easter, Jesus has risen from the dead and loves us even with our nutty issues.  All i have to do is trust him and jump in.