Reflection during Lent

For the 2 years and a little over 3 months since Andy died, I have mourned losing my beloved and my best friend. I have struggled with self-pity and a mourning of sorts, the loss of my identity. I did not know who I was. Prior to December 2008, I was a wife, mother, runner, teacher, Christian, daughter, scrapbooker, friend, seamstress, and housekeeper. I am no longer this person. I go from work to home to chore to refereeing and then falling into bed when I am not kept awake by thoughts and depression.

In the time since December 2008, I watch very little TV. I usually do not go out except with my boys. I no longer sew or scrapbook. I no longer run really. In the eternal scheme of things, all of those activities do not really matter. I am tired of my self-imposed sadness. For the season of lent, when I reflect upon how my own indulgences distract me from obeying God, I have decided to surrender myself.

The important things, in this life I have been given, are serving God and being the best mother to raise confident, born again, spirit-filled, healthy boys. In these 40 days before Easter,I have set my daily/hourly goal for everything I do to be focused on these 2 goals. As I found while pursuing last month’s love quest, I am easily distracted by life’s trials, the mundane and otherwise.

After reflection, now I realize I am called to be a mother, teacher, Christian, and daughter. Joy is in these roles. Daily I pray God will deliver me of my self—the portion of me that rules in selfishness, the portion of me that mourns losses, the portion of me that takes the rest of me into the depths of darkness. My biggest fault has been letting anyone/anything/any situation aside from God have any impact upon happiness and joy. After four decades, I have to learn how to take “my” out of the vocabulary.

Do not put your trust in princes, in human beings, who cannot save. Psalm 146:3

Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. Luke 9:23

Stop trusting in mere humans, who have but a breath in their nostrils. Why hold them in esteem? Isaiah 2:22

Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. Matthew 16:24

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant Philippians 2:3-7

This is what the LORD says: “Cursed is the one who trusts in man, who draws strength from mere flesh and whose heart turns away from the LORD. That person will be like a bush in the wastelands; they will not see prosperity when it comes. They will dwell in the parched places of the desert, in a salt land where no one lives. “But blessed is the one who trusts in the LORD, whose confidence is in him. They will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit.” Jeremiah 17:5-8

I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. Galatians 2:22

But far be it from me to glory [in anything or anyone] except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ (the Messiah) through Whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world! Galatians 6:14

For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice. James 3:16