Lent

by Connie Reece

Most people find it difficult to believe that the woman seen all over the Internet in the hot pink straw hat and feather boa–the one who tweets and blogs and blabs about social media–grew up as a quiet, shy child. But it’s true. I was born an introvert.

It took me so long to say my first words, in fact, that some people worried I never would. My mother’s opinion was that I would speak when I had something to say; she was right. I thought a lot, daydreamed a lot, wondered about things–a lot.

When I was five or six years old, a visiting minister came to our church. He preached on eternity and went into great detail as he described what it would mean to live forever in heaven with God. To illustrate his point, the preacher described a sparrow flying around the earth, and at the completion of every circuit the sparrow touched a tiny wing to the ground and displaced a bit of dirt. How long would it take the sparrow to wear away the earth’s crust? Eternity would be longer, the preacher said.

I tugged on Mother’s skirt and whispered that I needed to go to the restroom. She probably guessed it was a ruse, but she escorted me out of the sanctuary. As soon as we got to the Ladies’ Room, I blurted out what was troubling my mind. I repeated the scenario I’d heard about the sparrow, and–struggling to make sense of it, to appropriate the meaning and apply it to my life–I asked, “Is what he said really true?”

Mother gave some answer that I took as assent, and I started to cry.

“But what will I do for all that time?” I said. “I’ll be so bored.”

I’m not sure I apprehend the meaning of eternity now any more than the first-grader who was always asking, “Mommy, what can I do next?” But I have come to take comfort in the fact that there is more to this life than what we see and hear and feel right now, that there is a part of us that will linger forever–however long that is–in dimensions we cannot perceive.

When Jon invited us to participate in this blog, he challenged us with this question: “What is the single hardest thing you need to give up to get started?” He was referring specifically to Lent, but the question is larger than that for me.

And the answer is one word: control.

It’s difficult to give up control when you’re a thinker, when you’re always wondering why?, when you’re used to relying on your own wits, your own words, to get by. That control we struggle so hard to hang on to is a façade, though. There is a force far greater, far beyond our capabilities or comprehension, that controls the universe, keeps the planets spinning in their proper places, and makes sense of things insensible to human minds.

Yet we are not puppets. We have choices to make. Difficult choices. Life-changing choices. The choice to believe. To obey. To follow without knowing the destination.

There are days when we face circumstances we never imagined we could endure, yet somehow we do. Days when a doctor’s report sucker-punches us in the gut. Days when tragedy rips our hearts to tatters. And while those days may take us by surprise, they were known far in advance by a loving God. Nothing that befalls us takes our Heavenly Father unawares.

Consider these words by the psalmist: “All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be” (Psalm 139:16 niv).

Poetic language, to be sure. And yet, if there is an omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient God, then those words move beyond metaphor and into reality. God knows the number of my days, and what each one holds. And that is what calls me to surrender and invites me to an intimate relationship with my Creator: he knows me.

He knows that I am 21,222 days old. He alone knows whether I will live to see day 21,223 and beyond. He determined that number before I was born, when he “knit me together in my mother’s womb” (Psalm 139:13 niv).

He knew that on day 20,935 of my life, I would meet a man named Jon Swanson through another online acquaintance, Chris Brogan. Our paths were meant to cross.

He knew that on day 21,848 of her life, my friend Susan Reynolds would find a lump in her breast that would turn out to be malignant, and that on day 21,864 she would have a mastectomy. As Susan gets ready to start chemo, her family and friends are concerned. We worry. We dread what the days ahead hold for her. We don’t know the complete number of her days.

Yet there is One who knows, and who wants us to know–and to trust–him with all that we are and all that we hope to be.

That’s where I start. I choose to trust.