Trinity UCC Lenten Devotional for Saturday, March 21st "Struggle" By Jodi Kirk

Saturday, March 21^st:

By Jodi Kirk

SCRIPTURE:

Jeremiah 17:7-8 

But blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him.  They will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream.  It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green.  It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit.

 

POEM:

Poem #17

By Terri Gelzer

Shower me with kindness and good wishes

so I might tuck them away;

I will use them on a gray day

That finds me adrift in a sea of sad.

 

Shower me with hope and yeses

so I will remember it happens that way

sometimes.

I will keep learning even on a day

when I feel like my paper will come back

to me with a big fat F written across the top

written in red ink (of course)

maybe I will not be so afraid to fail.

 

Shower me with songs and stories

I want to know your heart

I might know myself better

especially if the same thing ever happens to me

I will listen to another world.

 

Take my hand

here is some soap

and water

We will be clean and shiny together

 

REFLECTION:

I struggle with the concept of “more”.  I am constantly seeking…more.  I have lofty ideals and incredible visions of how things could be …of how I should be. I yearn for MORE. I search for something BEYOND. I ache with the knowledge that there is so much more to examine and explore. I yearn to unearth more depth, more understanding, more compassion, more hope, more love…to discover a more realized and fuller sense of me.

Every new year, every new season,  every new month – heck  - the beginning of each week, I am on the hunt for ways to be …better … more efficient, more patient, more healthy, more productive, more kind, more active, more loving, more organized, more creative, more scholarly.  I so badly want to be a better mom, a better teacher, a better wife, a better sister, a better friend, a better artist, a better cook, a better house keeper, a better communicator.  I am forever making resolutions and promises to myself. I will play more, I will walk more, I will read more, I will write more. I will sleep more, I will clean more, I will BE more. 

I love dreaming and making plans. I love re-imagining aspects of my life and have grand notions of creating vision boards and waking early to meditate and do yoga and journal while sipping the perfect cup of herbal tea, I come up with new systems to organize toys and legos (can one ever really organize legos?) and elaborate chore charts that seem equitable and break down the seemingly endless tasks of life into perfect, manageable chunks. I come up with new exercise routines and lay out perfectly planned – and super healthy – meals for the week ahead.  I write out to do lists and dream sheets which lay out my goals and hopes in what seems to be orchestrated divinity. 

Somehow, in spite of my vision, my hopes, my resolutions, my planning and plethora of promises dishes still pile up in the sink, we end up ordering pizza, I over sleep, the book I am trying to read remains unfinished and my journal and vision board remain untouched.

Searching for the unobtainable “more” is great incentive and calls for a great deal of reflection and invites wonder and possibility, but it can also be disappointing. It can lead to a very real sense of not measuring up. The quest for “more” can imply that somehow I am not enough.

The truth of the matter is that I am more that enough We are ALL more than enough. Isn’t that , in large part, what Lent and Easter are all about.  We are God’s children and even at our messiest, we are loved.  In the moments when we feel like we are doing nothing right, we are forgiven.  When we feel like everything is hopeless, we are given a second change, Every new day, every new moment, every new season, every new year, provides each of us with the opportunity to stretch beyond our comfort zones, to reach for something greater … something MORE … not because we fall short or because we are unworthy but because we are so more than enough. God has made it so.

PRAYER:

Dear God, thank you for opening our eyes to new possibilities. Thank you for knowing our full potential and guiding us to new growth while loving us exactly as we are. Thank you for loving us through our imperfections and failings and reminding us that we are worthy of your goodness, your grace and your steadfast love.