Author: Amanda Viviers

If I just scroll one more length of my glowing screen, something, anything may jump out and make me feel better.

Avoidance.

If I just run back to bed, throw the covers over my head and pretend this is not happening, then maybe I might feel okay.

Hide,

hide.

Shift,

run.

If I just shout a little louder, stamp my feet with more force and self sabotage my way towards pushing those closest away…

Maybe then I might find the space I need.

What do you revert to, when you are faced with trials?

Do you struggle with mystery, keeping the unknown at a safe distance, controlling every detail or swinging to the extreme of hiding away unable to face the raw truth?

The walk of lent is a mysteriously severe one. John the Baptist tells us that “He must increase but I must decrease”. For Him to increase we have to be okay with the mysterious walk.

The unknown.

“When we were children most of us were good friends with mystery. The world was full of it and we loved it. Then as we grew older we slowly accepted the indoctrination that mystery exists only to be solved. For many of us, mystery became an adversary; unknowing became a weakness. The contemplative spiritual life is an ongoing reversal of this adjustment. It is a slow and sometimes painful process of becoming “as little children” again, in which we first make friends with mystery and finally fall in love again with it.” GERALD G. MAY

It is my son Maximus’ birthday on Friday, today whilst sliding down our family night play set, my sister was saying to him. “Maxi what do you want for your birthday?”, every Christmas, Birthday to date, he has listed off a long reel of toys, that are his absolute obsession. Tonight he replied “Surprise me Jenna, surprise.”

He is learning to delight in the unknown, he’s is shifting from a demanding toddler, to a little man who loves to dance with delight. Tonight as we got ready to sing and blow out his birthday cake, he whispered to me “Is it time for my celebration Mum, is it time?”

My son is delighting in the mysteries of life.

He is learning to love the expectancy of the unknown.

As life throws its hard hitting tomato’s in our face, we start to lose the wonder of the unknown and we end up becoming adults who control and contrive every part of our lives, to stop any potential of being let down or disappointed.

Enter faith.

Lent is a mysterious walk.

Easter, is not a celebration for the faint hearted.

As we step towards the utter depravity of Good Friday, we have sit in the unknown in between of Easter Saturday, with our ash cloth and bloodied remnants, being assured in the faith step that Easter Sunday brings the brilliance of resurrected life.

The avoidance dance.

The control concoction.

The surprised expectancy.

What position do we want to place ourselves in this Easter?

Day 30: my avoidance of hard conversations is catching up with me.

My little man has a slight obsession with bandaids at the moment. A scratch, a mark and a first aid emergency is declared. He wants the hospital bed, the bandage unrolled and Mummy doctor is employed. I watch my little man, lapping up the attention and the care, with a wry smile remembering that we all have these little people with their hands up internally asking for someone to fix the problem.

We are in a fixing season as a family and every time I want to pull out the bandaids, with Bob the builder precision, but a bandaid was never designed to fix a gushing wound, as much as quick and easy answers were never designed to bring deep healing to seasons of unanswerable tragedy.

How often do we ask God for a quick bandaid, when he is wanting to delve into the source of the infection?

Fixing can be an addictive need to plug a little hole, that never will solve the source of the breaking dam.

Today, in the midst of my sojourn towards Easter, I am attempting to stop putting bandaids on the external to try and stop the pain. I am trying to dig into the source of the places of ache and resolve the source.

Trust lies at my source,

Negativity and worry infect my wounds,

The activist in me, just wants to Martha out the problem and find the solution.

Lent asks us to wait,

Lent asks us to delve,

Lent demands us to find perspective.

We are drawn into an eternal dance of contradiction, that is leading us towards a death that was resolved with resurrection.

The pain we are enduring right now, when it is not covered by quick fixes, is drawn into a resurrected place. A place of peace and not knowing that the answers will be revealed eternally.

““I do not want to fix myself. I cannot fix myself. My natural fortitude served me well as a young believer and it was inevitable that I was habituated from birth to live in the power of self. But as I grow older in the faith, I find that I am invited by the Spirit to learn to give up the project of moralism, of trying to fix myself by my spiritual efforts. Rather, I want to open more deeply to Christ’s work on the cross and the work of the Spirit in my deep for my daily bread.” JOHN H. COE

Day 33: I am putting away the bandaids and asking that God would help me find the places of infection.

Last night I leaned right in, I listened and I asked for help. That help came in the form of prayer, of space and of time. The precious gift of a gathering with a community of people seeking to wrestle with God.

I remember what I thought was a silly story back in college of someone who needed space and time as a stay at home Mum and she would place a tea towel over her head and pray. Or I have heard the stories of people who have locked themselves in bathrooms, just to find some space. Now as a novice Mum of nearly four years I am learning how precious time can be. Space. No one needing me. Refuelling my places of lack. Recognising my need to find myself as well.

I drove my car to a local church and I sat, riveted by a story that I have heard time and time again. It is the story of Ezekiel, when he was taken to a wasteland, a grave yard, a place of desolation. The picture of the trial, the place of utter darkness and God spoke to him and told him to speak.

speak,

speak,

speak, to that which is dead and desolate and bring life.

Speak hope, speak truth.Find your voice to speak with authority to that in your life which has lost its way.

Do you feel like you have lost something?

How are you speaking to that part of your life?

I realised in the midst of this time of reflection, that when I enter a season of trial, when I am needing to find answers, I pull away. Not to a place of peace and rest, I lean out and away and try to work it out by myself. I am like a little girl who is desperate to work out the puzzle and runs away to my bedroom, not appearing until I have the solution. I lean out, I brainstorm, I create, I think, I produce and I work damn hard to bring back to life what has been lost.

My simple revelation last night was this…

What if I leaned in?

What if I waited in that awkward place of trial and then spoke. A soft voice, a heart that is waiting for answers, what if I relied a little more on others, rather than working it all out on my own.

Help from my husband,

Help from my God.

What if I rested in a place of trial and awaited for the answer to arise, just like the dry bones that rose as Ezekiel spoke life into them.

Are you standing in a place of desolation?

Are you in the midst of battle and your arms have grown tired from holding up a shield that you are unsure you can hold any longer?

Then rest, then wait and lean in.

Don’t lean out (I am speaking to myself here.)

Don’t try work it out all by yourself.

Wait.

“The LORD will fight for you; you need only to be still.”

Exodus 14:14

I got home last night and ripped out the middle pages of a pamphlet I picked up at the event that shouted in capitals…

IN HIM.

Day 34: Learning to fight differently in the midst of trials and lean into Him.

Busy, busy, busy…

Hurry up, hurry up, hurry up…

Move, move, move…

Grief catches even the fastest creature, no matter how we duck and dive, flick and divert…It catches us all.

I don’t know how to describe the loss of loved ones, the loss of relationship, the loss of health and the deep lament it unearths. Each time I think of the people in my world who are lost deep in the trenches of grief, my heart aches and wanes.

I feel like my heart is running on just a few bars of battery, because grief has emptied my centre of its power.

I’m on my way out tonight for a gathering, a community of people coming together to pray and my heart longs to be recharged again.

Grief, I will not speed past your sorrow. I will ask the questions that loosing my loved ones demands. Although lament is not popular or accepted in our society, I will continue to dig deeply to places where the ache pangs.

My favourite scripture of all time is this from Lamentations 3;

^22-24 God’s loyal love couldn’t have run out,
    his merciful love couldn’t have dried up.
They’re created new every morning.
    How great your faithfulness!
I’m sticking with God (I say it over and over).
    He’s all I’ve got left.

There are many days of late that I am walking by faith not by sight. One could say we are in an intense battle and if I listed everything that has been challenging us, the list would fill pages.

Today at 6.40am to be exact I got a call from my husband saying his car had simply stopped working. On his way to work, he had to pull over and wait for a friend who lived close by to come and rescue. We had the car towed to the mechanic and this afternoon we found out the engine has completely died and the only answer is a complete new engine.

We’ve laughed many times, that we will drive the car until it falls apart and it has been a faithful companion, through my single years, a funny story keeper from our dating days, an adventure bound journey maker on our honeymoon and it carried our little Man when he was just days old.

No matter how often you have used something, it is never a good day when it blows up.

I have been asking myself “Are we doing something wrong?”

The problem I am having of late though is with something I have wrestled out here in this forum before. I have been once again dancing hard out with doubt.

Worry is displacing certainty and my shield of faith has been shaking.

I have been contemplating questions like;

“What if the bad actually wins? What if good doesn’t get the final say? What if this has been all a big exercise of praying without answers?”

Heavy questions I know.

Yes, doubt has taken me on a ride and nearly taken charge.

Today Alicia, on the journey of 40 days of decrease, challenges the reader to allow doubt and uncertainty to form and mature us. Allow these times to decrease our reliance on self and to step out deeper into the waters of faith.

You see yes, doubt has the capacity to lead us off track but it also has the potential to fling us wider and higher into places of trust. We cannot trust something that we have not fully embraced. Unless we embrace the fear, unless we admit the difficulty, unless we wade into the thick place of questioning, we cannot find the space of reckoning that is required for a robust relationship.

When we wrestle we are strengthened.

When we ask, seek and knock we are found waiting.

I am learning to sit more comfortably with doubt. Allowing myself to question whether I am safe and what is safety. What is important and why so many people I know are going through time of trial.

I am lamenting and shouting, seeking and finding, asking and waiting.

This is a place of decrease.

This is uncomfortable.

But honestly, I would much prefer to be in this place of raw anticipation, than in a place of innocent pride unaware of my own self obsession.

I will never be too cool to say that I have questions.

I never want to arrive in a place where someone cannot ask me hard questions.

I want to be malleable, flexible and when doubt rears it’s ugly head not to be so focussed on shutting down a dialogue that makes me feel sick, but to dig deeper and find the real source of pain.

Stepping one day into uncertainty, knowing that as we walk with the broken and seek the Father of our beginning and end, that we are contained only by his love.

Everything we carry with us in this life will pass away.

I took a chalk and wrote on our blackboard…To remind myself, even on the days I am not sure if I believe it.

“For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways.” Psalm 91: 11

Day 36: stepping forward with my doubt tucked away in my pocket, learning to be okay with its weight.