And how could we endure to live and let time pass if we were always crying for one day or one year to come back–if we did not know that every day in a life fills the whole life with expectation and memory and that these are the day?

–C.S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet

A heads-up here: this is basically a self-serving post. I would be so happy if I could win something, and so I’m going to link to my friend  Becca’s blog. She’s hosting a give-away of one of her drawings, and it would be great fun to win.

Becca is, among other things, an artist with words and paint. It would be an honor to have something she drew, and it would just be a ton of fun to win a drawing!

My Good Friday was good–wonderful, actually! Slept in, read, hung laundry in the sunshine (probably my favourite chore), met a friend in the park, went for ice cream and laughed alot, had a picnic in the forest with friends–all told, it was a great day. A good day becomes immeasurably better when the sun shines.

I’ve often wondered why it’s called Good Friday because it was a terrible day. Last Sunday when the pastor talked about Jesus’ trial and suffering, it made me cry. There’s nothing nice about that story.

The payment for sin was death. That’s easy to understand. But why did it have to hurt so much? Why the thorns and scourges? Maybe His pain is the best way that He could get our attention. Maybe nothing else would impact us as much. We don’t know so well how it feels to die but we know what it’s like to hurt. Though no one ever hurt like He did.

I think that the worst pain is alonenness, abandonment. What is good about Easter is to know that “as dark as it gets” happened already. It will never hurt as much as He hurt. So now even the worst pain–aloneness–has fellowship. His suffering means that we are never alone in our suffering.

I can’t explain it well, but Mark Galli does here. He explains why Good Friday was good and how forsakeness is redemptive. His message is courageous and comforting. Excerpts below:

Sometimes this word remains unspoken, but the sentiment is a steady reality. There is no great anguish. There are no tears. There is just the daily, ongoing experience of God’s absence. … We wouldn’t quite say we’re forsaken, but neither would we say God is a living reality. But at the end of another dreary day of divine absence, when we turn out the bed lamp and lie still in the dark, waiting for sleep to overtake us, we wonder, Why don’t I experience God more?

Sometimes the experience of God-forsakenness is much more keen. You are at a place of deep and profound need. You are staring into the face of death. Or your spouse is. Or your child is. Or you’ve lost a job or are about to lose a marriage. Or you are losing your faith. But whatever the crisis, it is a crisis. My God, you hang on a cross, and it’s excruciating, and this would be an awfully good time for God to show up…

But God is not showing up. There is nothing but silence, and the sounds that make the silence worse…

What is it with God, the God who promises abundant life, the God who invites all the weary and heavy laden to seek him out for rest? Why does this God sometimes seem to fail us just when the chips are down, just when we need him most?

The experience of God’s love is a wonderful thing, a divine gift, but like all divine gifts it can be so wonderful that we make it an end in itself. Instead of believing in God, we start believing in prayer. Instead of trusting in God, we believe in the authority of the Bible. Instead of simply basking in the love of family, friends, and church, and returning that love, the very meaning of our lives becomes determined by these relationships.

Who can say what Jesus experienced on the cross? What exactly was the nature of this forsakenness that he exclaimed? We know in one sense that Jesus’ death, and his forsakenness, was utterly unique, never to be repeated.

…if Christ’s incarnation—which includes his forsaken crucifixion—is a participation in humanity and thus our participation in him, then all humanity shares in Christ’s forsakenness, and to freely share in this forsakenness by faith becomes a way we grow fully into Christ-likeness. Whatever it meant for Jesus, it surely means this much for us: It means to know the abandonment that is the dead fruit of human sin and evil. It means to recognize the incomprehensible distance between us and an infinite and righteous God, to recognize again the terrors of life outside of life in him. It means also to grieve, not unlike Jesus, over our own and our world’s hardness of heart (“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem!”). It is indeed a fearsome thing to fall into the hands of the living God, for it means to suffer in ways not unlike the suffering of Jesus.

Again, let’s not wax tragic here. This is not the end of the story. Forsakenness would be tragic had Jesus not risen from the grave. We would not have the courage to talk about this sobering reality if it were not Easter.

Still, they come, these times of forsakenness. We are wise to remind ourselves that the cross is indeed part of the story of Jesus, and to the degree we would be like him, it becomes part of our story. You want to be like Jesus? “Okay,” says God. “Good for you! Be prepared to know forsakenness!” Because we can know Jesus, can be one with Jesus and the Father, only when we know this.

Thinking today about:
Lent,
ache, agony, suffering,
the darkness of waiting for Life,
the nourishment of the broken Bread of Life,
the Life in His spilled blood,
seeds shriveling and breaking before blooming,
morning always follows night,
Life always comes out of death.

Because there is a Redeemer. Darkness doesn’t have the last word. Death isn’t the final reality. He takes everything bad and makes light and joy out of it. Sometimes I believe this more than other times, but it’s always true.

If I were perfect, I wouldn’t need a Redeemer. So why desperately protect the facade that makes everything appear ok? May the Lamb that was slain receive the reward of His suffering. Let His agony on my behalf not be wasted.

So I don’t (usually) willfully sin, but I do foolish, stupid, mindless things that are less than perfect. That’s why I take incredible comfort from the words below, esp. “I restore the good which you own foolish mistakes have cheated you of…”

I tell you that beyond the awful borders imposed by
time and space and contingency,
there lies what you seek.
I announce to you life instead of mere existence,
freedom instead of frustration,
justice instead of compensation.
For I announce to you redemption.
I restore the years that the locusts and worms have eaten,
and the freedom lost to you through plunder
and the identity lost to you because of calumny
and the failure of justice;
and I restore the good
which your own foolish mistakes have cheated you of.
And I bring you to the Love
of which all other loves speak,
the Love which is joy and beauty,
which you have sought in a thousand streets,
and for which you have wept and clawed your pillow.
–Thomas Howard

It was a good speech, heartfelt and honest, in which a pastor spoke about the demands of pastoring and leading. He read an excerpt from a troubled young woman who was sharing her story. She told of her pastor and his wife meeting her to talk. The young woman quickly changed and avoided a subject that her pastor brought up. She wrote that the man realized what the girl was doing, but “the bird-brained wife didn’t know what happened.”

That sentence arrested me and made me angry enough that I couldn’t concentrate much on the rest of the talk. In my interaction with young women, hearing their stories, and seeing how many fall through the cracks, I am angry if an older woman cannot follow a young woman’s conversation well enough to see when she is carefully avoiding talking about needs to be talked about.

Granted, the girl may have misread the wife. Maybe the lady was tabling the issue, intending to bring it up again at a more opportune time. I hope she was.

But I say to anyone who will listen–especially women!–Life consists of far more than the space around the house and garden, the computer and shopping mall. There are bigger priorities to hold than comfort and pleasure, peers and reputation. Among the greater priorities should be young women who are fragile, tentative, searching. When these young women are neglected at the cost of pursuing lesser things, and/or taught the same values the older ones hold, the results are ugly and tragic. This is what makes me angry. And all of us are responsible, not only pastors’ wives.

(While I know that anger is not a good place to work from, it can give the impetus to work toward changing whatever triggers the anger. When God keeps anger from poisoning and embittering me, it is part of His miracle of redeeming the things I’m angry at.)

Bird-brained is not so much about intelligence but about “looking at life with raised eyebrows,” asking questions, taking interest in people and ideas, acknowledging that I am not the center of the world. (My gifted friend, Jewel, writes about this kind of intentional living more eloquently in this blog post.)

As for me, I have a complex about my own lack of academic intelligence; all my family members can out-wit me and reason and argue more logically than I. I wish I had a higher IQ, but I am not holding up intelligence as the answer to the world’s ills. What I am saying is that we need an alertness, an awareness, a constant sense of curiosity and inquisitiveness in order to expand our world and offer ourselves and what we have to the ones coming along beside us. This is more than intellectual prowess; it is about a Spirit-led sensitivity to what others are feeling and needing.

Is that too much to dream for?

It’s been a lightening-swift week. And nearly every day, I got another story about drops of honey. Oh, it was lovely.

I asked for stories in my last post for several reasons, and one was because I hate the way bad news makes the headlines, but good stories are too dull, I guess, for the world to hear about. And I think that’s a dreadful thing, and something to counter-act.

I have two happy stories about the past week. On Thurs. evening I was one of eleven ladies at my house, gathered around the fire in the sitting room. We asked each other the very personal questions of favorite and least-favorite foods, and introduced each other to the group that way. Surprising, the strong feelings that a food discussion brings! Then we settled into the kitchen and watched two of us do cooking demonstrations: stuffed courgette, and stuffed peppers. Yum! Then of course there was tea and dessert around the fire. When I asked about their worst food disaster, it brought out lots of stories about food and guests and funny food stories. We laughed til we had tears, and it was a most lovely, relaxing, fun evening. Great big drops of honey!

On Sat. a van load of us were in the West, headed for the harbour village of Portmagee. We boarded a boat and 45 min. later stepped off on Skellig Michael. It was beyond words. We climbed nearly 700 steps to the top, stopping now and then to look and wonder at the sea, sun, and lack of wind. There were hundreds of puffin’s burrows, and I stooped to look into several and a colorful bill and beady eye met mine. The skipper told me on the way out that when you’re on the island, you’re without distractions and as close to heaven as you can get. I know now what he meant. I didn’t spend much time at the very tip-top of the rock because we needed to get down and meet the boat again, but also because it made me weak in the knees. The island was surprisingly green, and there were mounds and carpets of wild flowers clinging to the rocks. I wanted to spend the whole day there, but the boat was waiting after we explored for about 2 hours.

Last year, the best day of my year was when we went paragliding in Interlocken, Switzerland. This year, the best day was when we were way above the water, absorbing the vista of sea, birds, and sunshine.

The best part of writing a book is getting feedback from readers. In the back of the book, I invite people to write me and share their story with me. I’m hugely honored to get emails and letters that introduce themselves and their lives. The one thing all of the letters have in common, no matter where they come from on the globe, is that they carry some degree of heartache and betrayal, loneliness and longing. Some say more about it than others, but it’s always there. In two years, I can remember only one letter from a reader that spoke of her happiness and delightful romance.

Of all that God has shown me
I can speak but the smallest word,
Not more than a honey bee
Takes on her foot
From an overspilling jar…
–Mechtild of Magdeburg

Part of my calling is to be an ear for ladies who have no one to listen to them, and I enter into this gladly. But sometimes I wonder where the happy stories are. Right now I’m ready to listen to something lovely and smiley and warm. It can be anything that you saw or heard or felt today or ten years ago. It can be about a rainbow you saw, or how your husband won your heart. It could be the pansy you found smiling at you, or the gentle rain on your face. I don’t care what it is. I just want happy stories, drops of honey from an overspilling jar. Surely that’s not asking too much?

An African proverb says that a person who sees something good must tell the story. So let’s hear some, because I know they’re out there.

Write your story in the comments box OR email me (anitayoder[at]gmail[dot]com). I want to hear from you! And if you don’t have a happy story, well, that’s ok. Send me your sad one tomorrow. I want to hear that too, honestly. Just not today, ok?