Waiting

Preparation was the keyword for Lent: that period leading up to Holy Week, to Christ’s Death, and to His Resurrection.
Easter is what makes us Christians. Without it we are nothing.
Without it there was only a man: there was no Christ, there is no Christ, Christianity is nothing.
Preparation - symbolizing Jesus’ forty days spent in the wilderness before beginning His public ministry – preparation for the commemoration and celebration of the fulfilment of God’s plan for Jesus, and, through His obedience to that plan, for all mankind: - for you and for me.

That theme has shadowed me for the last two months, and though my last recorded thoughts have been the briefest reminders of that which filled the three great days of Easter, the need for groundwork - that ongoing preparation of my inner self for the reception and germination of whatever seeds God may sow therein – led me into those days, and, in a remarkable way, has led me through to the other side.
Remarkable in that it has put me down in what so clearly seems to be an unchanged state.
I am so aware of this; I am almost afraid of this.
I had not expected or anticipated anything; in a way I had even assumed that I would arrive beyond Easter without anything having changed.
That appears to be what has happened, but I really had not been ready for this ever-growing awareness of the fact that it has happened.

I spent time walking towards the edges that Lent always places before me; not a frightening experience, as I have come to know those edges a little better over the years, but always troubling, frequently sorrowful, and inevitably a source of feelings of humiliation and inadequacy.
They are the same ones: the familiar but ever disturbing external ones encountered in trying to follow Jesus right to the very end, and the shameful repetition of my own internal failures when, on sensing that He is calling me to follow, I leave Him to walk alone once more.

Throughout this period, preparing the ground has been my underlying focus.
It has been the basis for all that has filled me through the days of Easter, and yet, I feel prompted to open my awareness to more random leadings – after all, this is what the journey has always been like for me: an experience of twists and turns, which, though following a consistent course, feels far more haphazard and aimless during the experience.
Hindsight later reminds me what a good friend it can be, by allowing me to recognize the clear path I have been following.

But here I am, held fast in this spot, having gone nowhere, and anticipating being unable to move for the foreseeable future.
( I should know better. I should anticipate nothing, while being ready for anything. )
A large part of me is ready to grasp at whatever thoughts come my way, to use them as a supply line for whatever I may write in the next few posts, while the other part of me senses a need to rest here: to wait on The Lord; to remain prepared, watching, alert for whatever He may ask of me.

I am writing this as I think, and have become aware that I am steadily settling back into a more peaceful frame of mind.
I feel the situation is being resolved for me, though I am not used to communicating this to others almost as it happens, if at all.
This is not having arrived back in the same place to know it for the first time; this is to have returned there in a state of less certainty than when I previously left it – and without having been away.
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“Speak, Lord; for your servant is listening.” (1Samuel 3:10)
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