This Will Always Be My Favorite Lent Story
Lent looks different every year for our family. For one, it wasn’t even something we acknowledged growing up in our particular community of faith. But I really love the discipline of fasting and I especially appreciate when communities come together to fast collectively. This year, however, I’m not fasting from anything food related. I’m really not fasting from anything at all. Rather, I’ve made a commitment to prayerfully approach the Father on behalf of several people I know who need the support of prayer right now. I set these little alarms on my phone and all throughout the day I hear rings that remind me to pray for the new mother who is being knit together with her two adopted daughters, the friend who is choosing resurrection over abandonment, the son who is making a decision about school, the bride who waited for the Lord’s timing, the loved one across the seas who is beginning a new season of life….I can’t always kneel, and sometimes I’m in a place or with people where I can’t pray with full attention — but my heart is ever being pricked for these dear people, my thoughts are daily turned toward their struggles and victories.
Several years ago, we decided to embrace silence each day of Lent. To listen for God, to hear things we don’t normally hear. And in order to make time for silence, we had to stop, and give up what we were doing in those moments. My very favorite story of Lent is from that year. And it goes like this:
In the quiet we’ve been sitting. Together in the same room, no talking, simply being. Some close their eyes, some keep them open, and at different times we look at the wooden cross hung on our mantel.
Even Tessa participates, though her three-year old energy is bursting through the silence wanting so badly to speak or move. Fifteen minutes must be longer in silence than in activity, for it feels like an eternal moment in our day.
Day one, the children noticed what they must leave in order to join the quiet – a snack, a game, a book, the computer. When you say yes to something, you’re always saying no to something else.
Day two, we got distracted by loved ones laboring in love, blessing our home with the smells of Ugandan cooking and clean floors and windows. We forgot to be quiet. So before bed, we turned the lights out and together we approached Jesus in silence. Five minutes into this new way of being, Luke finds me in the dark and lays his head on my chest to rest. I draw him near and soak him up because he’s not my cuddle one.
Five more minutes passed and Connor – the one who wrestles in his mind — whispers that his “bad thoughts” are haunting him again. It doesn’t surprise me. These thoughts often lurk in the dark. So I draw him close too, which feels natural because he is the cuddle one.
When the fifteen minutes ended, Luke breaks the silence.
Your heartbeat makes me feel loved and safe, he says.
I don’t move. The one who is 10, the one who does not emote is sharing his feelings with me, with all of us.
I remind him that my heartbeat was the only sound he heard for nine months when God formed him inside me. He smiles. Then he turned to his younger brother who adores him.
Connor, you know how mom’s heartbeat makes you feel loved and safe? {As if it’s a well known truth they share} Well, when you listen to it try to remember a good memory from a long time ago. And lock it in your mind so when your bad thoughts come you can think of that memory instead.
I hardly know what to say. It’s only day two and Jesus had entered into our silence.
As if nothing just happened, Luke exits the room. Connor and I sit quietly. He knows. We both know. We have just received a gift. I whisper in his ear: This is him saying I love you. This is him saying that he cares that you have bad thoughts.
Connor smiles. This little brother has waited a long time for this.
I go to bed that night with a deeper appreciating for the quiet. So this is what it does! It causes us to search for safety. To find the one that makes us feel loved. It allows us to hear heartbeats. It connects us with our emotions. It causes us to see others. To help them in their hurting.
It has me wanting more. More quiet, more rest, more Jesus.
edited from a previous post
