finally

Great Lent started 7 days ago. I was not ready, hadn't thought about it, and had to come to the difficult decision to wait to start it.

This is my Cheesefare Week. The last meat I ate was yesterday, a phenomenal red snapper. I find that I'm ready for this and so excited. I know that this year it's springing more out of my need to find comfort, and whether that's good enough is something I'm not sure of. But where else to find comfort than the Comforter? And how better to find him than shoulder to shoulder with all saints, living and dead, walking with Him through the last 40 days before our victory was won?

I find in Lent the nearness not just of my God, but of all the saints. They seem right here. And it sounds like madness, but my mind's eye is nearly always seeing the banners and hearing the music of the Triumphant.

There is a temptation here to use this gift we've been given and try to turn it into a bargaining chip. "God, what if I did the full fast, all of it, and threw myself at the feet of Saint Anne and promised to..." "Would you give me a child then?" "What if I proved I deserve to be a mother, somehow, by..." "I would walk 10000 miles. How about that?"

But that's not what this is for. This is about being prepared, no matter the circumstance, to be strong, and faithful, and thankful, and courageous, and ready to meet him at the cross, the tomb, and the upper room. It's not just mothers who see the face of God. The barren can find Him too.

Being a mother will not save my soul. But what I choose to do about the outcome, either way, can.

I was laying in bed yesterday afternoon in tears, the ugly kind, trying to figure out how to face the rest of my life without the dream, or the reality of children. Trying to wrap my head around a door shutting on not just pregnancy and babies, but first days of kindergarten, school plays, soccer games, homecomings, proms, weddings. Grandchildren. The loss is gargantuan. And I was asking, out loud, "How am I supposed to carry this? I don't know how to do this."

And the answer came at once, and so clearly. And I don't know the immediate source of it, but I do know who to give the credit to.

Yes you do.

And I do. I carry the trouble of today, today. I cry when I need to. I allow myself to be buoyed by hope when I can. We're only ever asked to carry each moment as it comes. Someday when I am old, I may mourn still as my friends have grandchildren. But I don't have to carry that today.

And I polish and shine the gifts I have.

I just don't want to do this. I just don't want to hear, finally, "no."

"Take this cup away from me, if you will." Does this sound familiar? The cup isn't always taken, but comfort is sent, if we will have it. Lord help me see it.