Reflection, Renewal

Today is Ash Wednesday and marks the beginning of one of my favorite times of year being the Lenten Season. This season can mean a lot of different things to various people, but I want to communicate what it means to me personally. I can sum up the time until Easter in two words, reflection and renewal. I find that during this time I have the focus to look back over the time since the previous Easter and reflect on the ways my spirituality has grown or reflect on where my spirituality needs to grow further. Reflection can be painful and humbling. But it can also be a place to find gratitude. Take time to think about how and where in your life God has grown you spiritually? Maybe it is in discovering a talent you never knew you had or meeting someone you feel like God placed in your path? Or maybe you feel like your spirituality has grown stagnant? That is where the renewal comes in. If you recognize that feeling you are in the perfect season to renew that stagnant feeling and work on growing that spirituality within yourself. It's there, it just needs to be dusted off and opened back up. All of us grow weary in spirit and all of us are in need of renewal, it is just hard to recognize that within yourself sometimes and identify that the spiritual neglect is what is actually making you feel down. As I reflect, I can pinpoint the aspects of my life where I have grown spiritually and it is a warm feeling to notice. Spiritually I feel have grown in the acceptance of the mysteries of God. I don't need all of the answers and it is impossible to ever find all of the answers surrounding the One. I can now trust that mystery and spiritually feel whole in trusting in the various mysteries of God. Also I have grown in the sense that I know and feel that love is stronger than death. His love made death temporary. Don't let the feeling of its finality fool you. God defeated death. The most painful time in anyone's life is usually the loss of a loved one. But God gave us comfort for that pain. He gave us the promise. The promise of eternal life. And it never feels as comforting or as important until that overwhelming loss happens. Still the loss hurts tremendously, but there is hope in that hurt. Hope in the promise. I find that the love I have for my brother Addison has grown since his death. Addison's death awakened the spiritual thirst in me that needed what only God could provide. I love Addison more for having revealed to me through his death all of the things I was getting wrong in life and revealing to me all that I was wrongly prioritizing. Also for helping understand the magnitude of the promise of eternal life and the weight of that promise. Only God could open that door of your soul that allows love to grow for someone after their death! That in itself is a divine miracle. So in the season of reflection and renewal, take a moment to reflect on all that God has been for you since last Easter and take time to renew any of those stagnant feelings within you that could spring-forth a new aspect of spirituality within you.

Love - No Greater Commandment

For the past couple of days I have been sort of reeling over a church I heard about on the news. The church is Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas. Their primary goal is to picket. They picket everything from soldier's funerals to the anniversary of the shootings at Virginia Tech. Why you might ask? Personally, I am not sure. But I did google them and I encourage you do so yourself because their actual official website address is so vile I don't even want to put it in blog. From what I can tell this church uses the mantra of hate instead of love. It has really bothered me. That sort of church is what gives us christians a very bad wrap. It upsets me because people who are on the fence about believing in God might see things about this church and blanket all churches and christians in that category. With that being said, I started researching the word love in the Bible. The word love is mentioned 310 times in KJ version and 531 times in the NIV version. Searching the word also lead me to one of the most important verses in the Bible spoken by Jesus himself.

When a teacher of law asked Jesus what the most important commandment was Jesus replied, ""The most important one," answered Jesus, "is this: 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'There is no commandment greater than these." Mark 12:29-31.

God is love. And as christians we are commanded to love Him and our neighbors. I admit the second one is hard sometimes. I get so mad or frustrated with people, for example like while driving on the road, that I forget I am to "Love your neighbor as yourself." That is my new personal challenge. Every time I feel the urge to rant and rave over someone on the road, at the grocery store, in the line at Starbucks, or anywhere I am going to pray for an open heart to love my neighbor as myself. Max Lucado put it best, "He loves each one of us like there is only one of us to love." And I want to try and do the same.