I loved Advent, what it stood for, weeks and weeks of thinking about all the different ways Jesus comes to us.  In discovering the Church year, I was looking forward to living round the seasons as a Lutheran.  Over and over I keep hearing El's words that this was the first year I would be a Lutheran. I am not sure she was speaking of new beginnings, but I took her words as such.

I do not understand Lent.

Tonight, it felt as if the pastor was yelling at me from the pulpit.  All the sermons I've heard this season seem to be laced with Law, crushing me word by word.  Do this.  Don't do that.  We all turn away.  We all fail.  We all should be...better.  I don't understand it.

I thought that Lent was a season to point us to the work of the cross, the gift Christ gave us then.  I know that tradition is to practice prayer, fasting, and almsgiving as a reflection of His life...or something...but the why of it is not clear to me to me at all.

For prayer, so much I read is how we don't pray or it is difficult or we don't have time or all sorts of things that make prayer seem a work...instead of a gift.  After all, it is the Holy Spirit who brings us to Christ and Christ who brings us to God.  Why wouldn't you want to talk to the One who gives us life?  In Him we live and move and have our very being (Acts 17:28a).  Shouldn't praying be as natural as breathing? 

I know you are probably screaming pot calling the kettle black right now, for my inability to pray for myself, to ask for help, for rescue.  I just learned so early that there was no help, no rescue.  I am learning that perhaps help and rescue can be different that what we think them to be, what I think them to be, but I still prayed.  I still pray.

Each day.

And since this summer, so much of my prayers have been the words of the Psalter.  I like using those because often I do not know what to say, I do not know what to even think.  Sometimes I go straight to the anguish psalms, pouring out my despair.  Sometimes I use the praise psalms to speak what I know to be true despite my feelings.  Sometimes I use the history psalms to remind me of all the good works He has done.  Sometimes I read the confession psalms and sometimes the forgiveness ones.  Whatever you are thinking, whatever you are feeling, whatever is taking place in your life is in the Psalter.  Words God gave for us to use today, tomorrow, and always...the Living Word.

As for almsgiving and fasting--if you interpret the latter as eschewing things of the world that enamor you, separate you from God--well, those should be all year things, just like prayer, so I do not understand this focus.

Nor do I understand why all the Law.  It's crushing.


Lord, I believe.  Help my unbelief!