Pastor Amy's Thursday Thoughts

This week our Lenten Bible studies continue to work their way through Lent’s lectionary texts (the lectionary is a Bible reading schedule), and looked this week at 2 Corinthians 5:16-21. Lent (the season before Easter) is a time for reflecting on death and life, on darkness and light, on hardships and blessings. And so, this week I share with you a blessing from our Lenten study.

Blessings,

Pastor Amy

Blessing for the Life You Didn’t Choose

Blessed are you when the shock subsides,

when vaguely, you see a line appear

that divides before and after.

You didn’t draw it,

and can barely even make it out.

But as surely as minutes add up to hours and days,

here you are,

forced into a story you never would have

written.

Blessed are you in the tender place

of awe and dread,

wondering how to be whole

when dreams have disappeared

and part of you with them,

where mastery, control, determination,

bootstrapping, and grit

are consigned to the realm of Before

(where most of the world lives),

in the fever dream that promises infinite

choices,

unlimited progress, best life now.

Blessed are we in the After zone, loudly

shouting:

Is there anybody here?

We hear the echo, the shuffle of feet,

the murmur of others

asking the same question,

together in knowledge

that we are far beyond what we know.

God, show us a glimmer of possibility

in this new constraint,

that small truths will be given back to us.

We are held.

We are safe.

We are loved.

~ Kate Bowler and Jessica Richie, “For the Life yo Didn’t Choose,” in The Lives We Actually Have: 100 Blessings for Imperfect Days (New York: Convergent Books, 2023), 1

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