Holy Week Hope & Joy (Even When You Don't Feel Like It)
Posted by: virginiaknowles <virginiaknowles@...>
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The Hope Chest with Virginia Knowles
Holy Week Hope & Joy
(Even When You Don't Feel Like It)
March 31, 2012
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Dear friends,
While preparing for a big Hope Chest issue on Food & Compassion, I realized I had a bit more work to do on it. Instead, I decided to just send a few things, including two recent blog posts, some links to others, and links to older posts for Easter since Holy Week starts tomorrow. I'll send the Food & Compassion issue next week. (If you are poking around on my blogs and see food posts, keep in mind that I will be making changes to them before then!)
Does the phrase "Hope & Joy" make you sigh? Yeah, I know it's supposed to be Easter. Like Christmas, it's supposed to be a season for hope and joy. But sometimes the very expectation that we should feel a certain way can make it even harder when we don't. So in honor of those who are struggling right now, a little later in this issue I'd like to share a poem and an article (including a Sara Groves song, "Less Like Scars". They both touch on the disillusionment we sometimes find in life and even our faith. You know who you are. Take a deep breath. Been there, done that, so if you need to talk, send me an e-mail.
And for the rest of you, there is some more cheerful stuff for you, too!
Hope & Joy (Really!)
Virginia
Easter Links: On my preschool & elementary blog you can find: Easter Card Outreach and the Jesus Game. Last year, I also posted a series for Holy Week and Easter with art, music, poetry, and Scripture:
their own blog posts about mothering, homemaking, crafts, education, cooking, inspiration, book reviews, outreach, etc. It’s a way to find
new blogs and new friends, and I hope you’ll have a bit of fun! This week, I already have about a dozen
links. Well, OK, about half of them are
mine, but we’re just getting off the ground.
How about you? Got a blog? Link up! And tell your friends!
Family and Co-Op: Not much family news for
now. We're just dealing with a lot of on-going health problems along with our usual daily chaos, so I'll spare you the details. 🙂 I did take my four youngest kids to
LegoLand Florida last week since our home school co-op got fantastic group
rates. Other than seeing my kids have so
much fun, the highlight for me was strolling through the old Cypress Gardens,
which is still on the grounds even after that theme park closed. I got lots of photos and practical field trip
info here: Florida Field Trips #5: LegoLand and Cypress Gardens (P52). Our co-op finishes up in early May, so I’m
trying to cram a lot into my remaining 7th-8th grade
English class. Our current reading and writing assignment is on Christian biographies,
as well as vocabulary words and concepts related to world religions and
worldviews. This
Monday we will be learning about Hinduism and Buddhism and the following week
it will be Tribal Religions and Animism. I would have liked to paste my
handouts into a blog post for you all (there are already ones for Islam,
Judaism and the Holocaust at the link above), but I can’t find the file on my
computer! Fortunately, I archived a hard
copy in a notebook so I can make copies for my students. J Before we started our missions and religions
unit, we did a writing project on writing “how to” instructions. You can find that here: How to Write a How To!
Commentary: As an on-going
student of church history and contemporary religion, I also
managed to finally write Why I'm NOT a Fan of Mark Driscoll, Real Marriage, etc. and
include about 25 links to other articles, video clips, blogs, etc. Let me
say that this was a long time coming, but I was surprised by the hundreds of
visitors to that particular post.
And now, on to the poem and the article!
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"Rebound" (A Poem)
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| "Well loved, well worn..." |
"Rebound"
By Virginia Knowles
It’s an old Bible, burgundy leatherNot ancient from generations pastBut growing old with meFrom college days until nowThree decades and change.Oh yes, the changes:One wedding, ten childrenTwo grandchildren in the generation after thatEntered onto the Marriage and Birth pages.(There are Deaths, too.)Nine moves, a dozen churches, in three statesAnd many more states of mind.
I have many Bibles in many versionsEach one an anchor, a refuge for the soul.Yet I always return to this oneWell loved, well worn: underlined, highlightedSmall prayers, Greek and Hebrew roots,And faith jingles mingle, s
cribbled in margins
Even diagrams and tiny impromptu sketchesTo illustrate some fine point gleaned along the way.And when I do not know what to readThis Bible always opens, as if by itselfPages falling quite naturally to Psalms 65 to 68:“You gave abundant showers, O God,You refreshed your weary inheritance.”And so you have, Lord, raining showers and refreshingThis weary soul from this worn Book.
In a hard momentOne of many hard moments in these years of changeI carry this refuge to a quieter place to read, reflect.And I see again in a new lightThe three decades and change ofWear and tear on Book and soul:Frayed-edged pages pulling awayUnstitching themselves in great chasmsFrom the burgundy leather coverWhich was meant to shelter them.I too am tattered in placesAt times tossed loose by lifeFrom my Shelter, my own dear Refuge.This will not do, Book or soul.(Rein me in Lord, reign in me.)
So still pondering the words on the frayed pagesAnd out of respect for the Eternal Word that never fadesI set out to repair, rebindMaking sure the loose pages do not slipOut of the sheaves, out of my heart(Even the hard ones I would rather not always read).And when I am done, my fixes are conspicuous
It has been rebound, not to look fancy and newBut merely to hold pages together in burgundy leatherTo hold me together inside my Enduring RefugeFor thirty more years and change.
If you like "Rebound" you might also like a much better poem that I did not write: "Sonnet, Trinity 18" by Madeleine L'Engle, in Honor of My Sister
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Celebrating hope and joy? The reality is that many Christian women experience disappointment, disillusionment and depression. Many of us face multiple simultaneous stresses, whether taking care of young children or elderly parents, marriage crises, infertility, wayward teens, church conflicts, financial distress, loneliness, or even general anxiety about what it going on in our communities and the world around us.
Hope and joy can be hard to find, especially when we confuse hope with expectation and joy with happiness.
A hope is something that we want to happen, that could possibly happen. We all desire healthy families, nurturing friendships, personal significance, and meaningful work. We are supposed to hope for and work toward these things! And yet our hope is not to be in these things or in our efforts, but in God, who is the good giver. We must trust that he will provide what we need, but not always what we want, and that what he gives us will be not only sufficient, but what is best.
An expectation is something that we think must happen for us to be satisfied. A desire becomes a demand. Unmet expectations can lead to anger and depression, so we feel like we have to control things and people to get what we want. (In some cases, this need for control is a survival function left over from a chaotic or dysfunctional childhood.) Many of our expectations are tied to our ideals and to our identities: "If I were a really good mom, I would...." or, for those who educate at home, "The children in godly home school families should turn out like this..." And when we don't, or when they don't? We try to force it! Or we become judgmental, grumpy, guilt-ridden, spazzed out, or worse. Besides our own expectations, we also need to be aware of how we respond to the expectations that others have for us. Do we allow our ability (or not) to satisfy unreasonable demands from others to determine our sense of value? Do we strive for perfect performance because we crave approval, or do we evaluate what is sensible, set our healthy boundaries, and choose to live as God himself has called us? Just because someone else thinks you need to do it doesn't mean that you should do it. Just because someone says that this is what good Christians do, doesn't mean that it is. Learn to listen to God for what he wants you to do.
Back to our own hopes and desires, what are we to do when we want something out of life? I like the picture of holding my desires before the Lord with an open hand, waiting to see what he will do. That doesn't mean passivity. We are still supposed to do our part!
What about joy? It's not the same as happiness, which is wonderful but fleeting. Joy is connected to a sense of gratitude, as well as acceptance (not complacency) and forgiveness (not a denial of the hurt). Joy and grief can co-exist. In fact, if you don't allow yourself to acknowledge and properly grieve what is wrong in your life, you can get stuck. Then it is harder to move on toward embracing and appreciating what is right in your life, even though the bad stuff doesn't go away.
Through it all, we need to stay connected to God, the source of joy. Unfortunately, some of us equate religious activity with an authentic relationship with God to the point where piety becomes a substitute for intimacy. Merely going through the motions on the outside depletes our inner joy instead of replenishing it. White-washed tomb, anyone? Yet if we really truly knew how much God loves us and is for us, how much he rejoices over us in Christ, wouldn't we want to listen to him, trust him, and grow deep in him? I don't know about you, but sometimes this is a struggle for me.
If our hope and joy are in God rather than in our circumstances or our performance, then we are also free to be bold. We can move forward with confidence and not worry about a bit of failure or disapproval along the way. We can take risks, starting with little ones like pineapple coconut bundt cake...
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| Pineapple Coconut Bundt Cake with Glaze
(the dark spots on the inside |
I had signed up to bring a sweet treat to the Drinking from the Well gathering. Wanting a dessert that is a little out of the ordinary, I decided to make a pineapple coconut bundt cake. The complication is that I didn't have a recipe! I could have looked one up on the Internet, but I like to experiment on my own. I figured it would be easy enough to mix two boxes of yellow cake mix (along with the eggs, oil and a reduced amount of water), a can of crushed pineapple, and a cup of shredded coconut. I poured most of it in the bundt pan, and then the rest into a loaf pan. I pureed a little more pineapple, mixed it with brown sugar, and boiled it down to make a glaze to spread over the cake after it cooled. When it took it out of the refrigerator the next day, I was surprised to find that it had sort of collapsed in the middle, and that there were some large hollow pockets inside. It looked a little... weird! I guess I had used too much batter in the pan! Certainly not the perfect bundt cake. Hmmm. Was it good enough to take to the ladies' gathering, or should I buy some cookies instead? I scraped off the uneven parts from the middle and tasted them. Very very gooey, but definitely delicious! Did it really matter what it looked like? No! I knew that my friends weren't going to judge me on my cake's appearance. I didn't need to feel insecure, so I was more than willing to take the risk. As it turned out, my friends all raved about how it tasted and laughed with me about my "cake wreck" story. Honestly, by the time I sliced it, you couldn't tell that it had "issues" to begin with!
Seriously though, I want to say more about my friends at church. It's not just my cake that they accept. I have experienced their warmth toward me ever since I stepped out of my car in the parking lot that first Sunday morning in September 2010. I hadn't even gotten to the building yet before a dear lady heard my car door close, turned around, noticed a new face, and walked back to greet me. The friendliness from people in the church continued, and it wasn't just the "love bombing" hype that some newcomers experience. Whether it is inviting us over for a meal, or picking up our kids for youth group, or giving them a partial scholarship to summer camp, or dropping everything to come be with us in a time of need, or taking the time to tell me they liked my latest blog post, we have felt their kindness, hospitality, and generosity. Over the past year and a half I have found them willing to listen and help when I've shared some of the less-than-perfect places of my life, some of the hard situations with no easy answers. And you know what? My stories don't alarm them, because many of them have already been-there-done-that, and aren't afraid to say it. My gratitude for them gives me great joy. Their acceptance gives me great hope and comfort. And that is becoming my new reality.
I can't end this post without sharing a music video of Sara Groves singing "Less Like Scars." (You will have to visit the blog post on-line to see it.) Honestly, when my husband gave me this CD many years ago, I listened to it a few times but just didn't really "get" it. It wasn't until later, in the storms of life that it sank in.
"Less Like Scars"
by Sara Groves
It's been a hard year
These lessons are hard
Healing changes are subtle
But every day it's
Less like captive, more like willing
Less like breakdown, more like surrender
Less like haunting, more like remember
And you're picking up the pieces
Forever faithful
It seemed out of my hands, a bad situation
But you are able
And in your hands the pain and hurt
Look less like scars and more like character
It's less like a casket, more like a womb
Less like dying, more like transcending
Less like fear, less like an ending
And you're picking up the pieces
Forever faithful
It seemed out of my hands, a bad situation
But you are able
And in your hands the pain and hurt
Look less like scars
I couldn't feel the power or the hope
I couldn't cope, I couldn't feel a thing
Just a little while back
I was desperate, broken, laid out, hoping
You would come
And I want you here
And I feel you
It seemed out of my hands, a bad, bad situation
But you are able
Look less like scars
Others links I already mentioned in this issue:
- New Weekly Blog Carnival: Equip & Encourage
- "Sonnet, Trinity 18" by Madeleine L'Engle, in Honor of My Sister
- Florida Field Trips #5: LegoLand
- How to Write a How To!
- Easter Card Outreach and the Jesus Game
- Holy Week and Easter blog series with art, music, poetry, and Scripture:
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Visit my web site at http://www.VirginiaKnowles.com