Wednesday, April 16, 2014

Preparing my heart for Easter

This has been one of those seasons where time has moved both incredibly slow and yet faster than I can imagine.   I honestly am having a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that Sunday is Easter.   Tonight we are on the eve of the Triduum, a time that I typically enjoy above all others because I am reminded of how great, loving, and mighty God is.  There is nothing more majestic than the feeling I get every. single. Easter. morning.  There is always something about the sunshine on Easter Sunday that surpasses all other days.

My heart feels so unprepared.  I thought this would be a lent that would prepare me better than most years.  Oh how mistaken I was.  

The saying that you get out of something what you put into it? 

Yep, true.  

Always true.  

I guess the fact that I was handed a cross before the start of Lent doesn't mean much if I don't do anything with it to help bring me closer to Christ.  The reality?  I'm just still struggling to function with this weight on me.  

Don't get me wrong, I trust.

I trust He will give me the strength to deal with saying goodbye to my baby girl if that is His Will.

I trust that He didn't cause this, our imperfect humanness did.

I trust that while He didn't cause this, He allowed it and that I can't see all the workings of His divine plan.

I trust that my baby girl will have an impact on this world, whether she comes home with us or not.

But Trust does not equal acceptance.  

Trust does not mean that I have yet found a way to truly internalize this news that I rationally have already processed.

Trust does not mean that I have found a way to accept this cross with open arms.  Everything in me wants to run away from it screaming in complete and total denial.  However, the fact that I still have my little girl in my womb and each ultrasound continues to show the same devastating news... makes it a little hard to be in denial.

Trust also does not mean that I've done a good job at using this time of sorrow to advance my prayer life.  As much as I am relying on the graces from everyone else's prayers for me, my family, and our little girl - I am having a hard time turning myself to prayer.  

I want to, but find myself oddly resistant.

Maybe it's because when I do pray, the weight of the cross is more of a reality than I want to acknowledge (even though I know that Christ is actually carrying the majority of the weight for me).

Or maybe it's because God blesses me with the emotion that I've been keeping at bay when I pray.  The grief and sorrow that is waiting in the wings feels like it could engulf me.  I say blesses because I feel so numb most of the time that I know those feelings of grief, sorrow, even anger are part of His healing process... but I am finding it so hard to embrace those emotions I know are coming.

Or maybe it's just as simple as a meager attempt at control.  It is HARD for me to admit (and even harder to accept) that I have no control over these circumstances.  There is nothing I can do to fix it.  There is nothing I can do to change it.  I can't help her.  It's amazing how counterproductive we can be sometimes.  If I can't control anything with baby girl, I at least am "in control" of my prayer life and relationship with Christ.

Sound a bit childish?  Yeah... I know.

Back to Easter.  I sit here trying to prepare myself in a way that I didn't take an opportunity to these last few weeks. 

Holy Thursday - Christ's Last Supper and creation of the Eucharist

Good Friday - Christ's sacrifice for all of us

Easter Sunday - His GLORIOUS resurrection...


These days always impact me.  They always find a way to sink in past whatever it going on in my life and renews my love for a Lord that LOVES us this much!

I pray that is the case again this year.  I need it to be so.

I am broken.

As Christ said on the cross, the spiritual and emotional side of me cries out: "My Lord, and my God, Why have you forsaken me?"

The rational side of me knows the answer is really Christ saying to me: "My child, why have you forsaken me?"

I intend to stumble through the next few days making myself confront my resistance so that I can hopefully come before Christ on Easter morning and truly pray Psalm 118:
"This is the day the Lord has made, let us be glad and rejoice!"

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