good friday

it's Good Friday. 
my day started early, in the dark, after a night of loud rain.
after a day when our house when under contract.  after a day with events that lead us thankfully closer to living under african skies. 

yesterday i checked my email, hundreds of times, every 10 minutes, to see if we had a reply to our counter offer, to see if the potential house buyer was still interested. i was even driving myself crazy. but i couldn't stop, i just kept checking.  finally, at 6pm we had another contract to look over, a counter, counter offer.  i was so jazzed up from my day of anxiety and anticipation and fear that i couldn't even relax and rejoice- all i could do was go down the 'what if' path and the 'yeah but' path.  i sat on the porch with mike, a beautiful night, with my foot twitching and my mind racing. 

that is not peace.  that is not trust.

i realized what a season it is of humility- of knowing that we don't really have much control. because we don't.  i like control, i like preparing, i like knowing, planning.  i don't like limbo and waiting and things not being clear.

the funny thing, the frustrating thing, the ironic thing, is that this must be my biggest lesson in life.  this must be my biggest stumbling block.  this must be the lesson that my character in the story of my little life, needs to learn.  so i'd better hurry up before more drama befalls me!

you'd think, having a child like zoe- would 'learn' me.  but even that i try to grab tightly onto and force into the direction i think it should go, although power steering is clearly missing and i'm using all my pathetic strength to turn the ship around.  you'd think going through the experience with jude would double teach me.  to be still.  to let go.  to live in the moment.  i did it for a while- i even got pretty good at it. but, like an addict, if i miss a few meetings, if i get cocky, i'm back to my own ideas of how things should operate.

so now, i'm in the passenger seat- i might even be in the back seat.  it's up to the bank to decide if our short sale will go through.  its up to other people who want to support us, to decide when the funds come together and we can book our plane tickets.  really, it's up to God.  his timing.  his plan.  and my heart knows this, trusts this, believes this- but do i ever try to help it all along.

today is Good Friday.  today at work there was a Good Friday service.  i never get out of clinic before 1 let alone before noon.  but today, i did.  today i got out and headed for the chapel to be reminded of transcendence, to be reminded of why my attempts at control really don't matter much. 

and it was beautiful. and i sat in that pew and i cried.  i sat in that chapel with patients and nurses and administrators, sat down right between a maintenance guy and a visitor- and i, in my quiet way, transcended.  seven people got up and spoke about the cross, about the guy who hung on it, about his last words, about what they meant.  words that were both divine and incredibly human.  words of forgiveness- translating as love.  words of promise, of healing. words of relationship of caregiving. words of honesty-crying out to God with feelings of abandonment.  words of thirst. of closure. of entrance.

'forgive them- they do not know what they are doing.
today you will be with me in paradise.
here is your son, here is your mother.
my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
i am thirsty.
it is finished.
Father into your hands, i commit my spirit.'

and hearing these verses, hearing these chaplains speak on these words, with power and depth, broke it down for me.  broke me down.  opened up my tightly clenched fists.   and opened up my heart. in this season of lent, this season of letting go, of leaning on God, i realized that i have been balled tight and trying to steer the ship.  the whole 40 days came crashing down in those 40 minutes and i sat and took in words like the dry dirt in the rain last night, pooling and then drinking in the pool, until i left soaked and saturated, until i was no longer thirsty, until i realized for me, it is finished.  i commit my spirit.

the words that mean the most to me, the words that bring me the most comfort, are the cry- the agonizing cry- why have you forsaken me.  that is a feeling i get.  that is a cry, i've cried. that is real and guttural and unifying. those words make Jesus more real perhaps than any others in the whole bible.  those words make me know that God, gets it. that God can take it.  and sunday, three days later, i know, i'm not comsumed.

i left light.  i left that heaviness in that room, beside that cross.  i left with a swollen heart of thanks that in giving up the control, there is freedom, lightness of being, joy and peace and all goodness.  i left knowing that i can't even give up the control with out help- the ultimate irony.

it is friday.

it is good.