I'm not finished

Last year, after our second miscarriage, we were right in the heart of Lent. I wrote about a devotional letter that the bishop of our church wrote. As we have entered the season of Lenten once again- I have found myself thinking back to that post. And his words are just as profound to me this year, as they were last year. More often than not, I feel like the language of faith and the way we talk about God and Jesus in church misses the mark for me. Something is either missing, or there is some sort of disconnect with how faith is articulated compared to how faith is experienced for me. But this- this is for me the essence of it:

*When Mary Magdalene, Mary and Salome came to the tomb, their hopes and fears intersected. They wondered aloud about the impossibly large and heavy stone that presented an obstacle to their immediate plans. Worse, what they thought lay behind the stone was unspeakably devastating. Jesus, who embodied the hope of God's promise in a fully human life, was not simply dead, but crucified -- executed in the most extreme humiliation, a savage mockery of the hope that had lived with him.

everything about our journey of trying to create a family, and how devasting it has been, for something that should have been so beautiful. The barriers feel impossibly large. And I am terrified what lays behind the rock, if we were to overcome it.

And then..the unimaginable, the unexpected, the start of an entirely new story, and the continuation of a story that started at the beginning of time...

But the stone was gone, the grave empty. Where they had expected to hear the silence of death's mockery, they were met by an astonishing message that the crucified one was raised from the dead, that their hope was victorious over humiliation, and that Jesus lives and is leading the way into an unexpected, surprising future with God.

I am at a loss as to where this path is taking me right now in life. I am struggling with the issues of my contract at work, I am struggling with the need to make the most responsible decisions in terms of our finances, and yet wanting to live out my calling in my career and wanting to have a family. And I fear the rocks that are in the way are immovable.

And yet He says, But remember my child, I am not finished yet with this story. Come write with me...

*Click here for the full text of the letter