Lenten Project: Day Thirty-eight (Maundy Thursday)

Lent is almost over. Today is Maundy Thursday. We've moved from self-reflection to a reflection on the ultimate selfless gift: Jesus' gift of dying on the cross for us.  We celebrate the institution of the Last Supper of our Lord, that time when He gathered together his disciples and taught them what is love and forgiveness.

This day is a holy day that's brimming with restoration and hope, looking to the future Easter, while remembering the beginning of the Passion.  For me, I keep in my heart the hope of reconciliation with my sister Elizabeth, though reality is discouraging.  Since my divorce, my sister, still a Fundamentalist, has been shunning me, denying repeated attempts to seek forgiveness or reconciliation, saying that I have the "spirit that worketh death" on me.  (I don't know what that is or how a Christian could be marked in such a way, and none of the pastors I've asked have understood what she means by that, either.)

I've emailed repeatedly, trying to keep the door to the relationship open, but all my offers and suggestions to restore harmony have been rejected. I honestly don't know what else to do.  She claims I'm unrepentant and unchanged since I divorced.  I suspect she believes, agreeing with my parents, that I'm a walking, talking adulteress.  That, unless I "prove" my penitential spirit by following a specific list made by her, I've not actually repented.  She and her husband reject the testimony of pastors (from several different churches and denominations--Anglican, Lutheran, Presbyterian, and Baptist), friends, family, those who have counseled me, those who have observed my life up close over the years and see a pronounced difference in me.  She demands that I let her "hold all the cards" and dictates that I must personally apologise to everyone who knew of my first marriage and divorce, since I broke my marriage vows to them and dishonoured God. Why my not having done these exact things must result in her refusal to have anything to do with me, I'm still not sure.  Most of what she has said makes little sense when viewed through the lens of Scripture and the light of the Gospel.

Hannah and Elizabeth sing together, Singapore, 2000

My friends, I want you to know that Jesus says his burden is easy and yoke is light, and his forgiveness is freely given, not earned through apologising to everyone you know. Jesus doesn't seek to break those who come to him, but to heal their brokenness. When you start living a life of redemption, the evidence is clear to anyone who will look--repentance has occurred, is occurring, and will continue to characterise you. This is what Easter, Christ's Passion, is all about.

I will admit, I've been tempted to fall back into my old habits of just pretending, of saying what my sister wants to hear so I can create a false peace, have a shallow reconciliation. But one thing I have learned, something I think has been shown through my posts this Lenten season, is that faking it never works.  Pretending all is well, embracing passive-agressivism, or even willfully choosing blindness and stunted spirituality, results in death, not life.

So I choose Christ.  I choose living a life of repentance.  I am marked as a child of God, and I want to be characterised by reconciliation.  But I can't force people to reconcile when they refuse.  I can't force people to act like Christ when they believe His virtues (peace, unconditional love, free forgiveness to those who don't earn or deserve it) are anathema.

I don't give up hope for my sister.  But I give the struggle up to God.  Because trying to convince a spiritually blind person that God is good and forgives is futile until that person willingly hears the Holy Spirit's voice.

This was a hard post to write. I wrote, deleted, rewrote, deleted again, scrapped the whole thing, prayed, pondered, wondered, and rewrote it all again from the very beginning.  It was not easy.  But it's right.  Because reconciliation is my theme. Hope and life are together threads entwined to run through every story I've told in this Lenten Project.

Hannah, Mary, and Elizabeth, mid-90s, Grenada

I hope that someday this episode of my life will be a testament to the reconciliation found in Christ, that Lizzy and I can be friends, or at least speaking sisters again.  Until then, it's a story of how Christians can be stubborn, proud, and often very unlike the Christ they serve, but how forgiveness is always available, always free, not earned. My comfort comes from the Lord. I'm reminded every Sunday during the Eucharist that we are one Body, Fundamentalist Baptists, Lutherans, and Anglicans, and everybody else, united in Christ, whether my sister Lizzy can see it through her blindness or not.  The passion of Christ was not futile or worthless.

Lenten Project: Fourth Fearless Friday

My family is a modern, blended family, and it is beautiful.

Divorce is never a wonderful thing.  It's brokenness embodied. But the fact that something lovely has grown out of something so tragic is amazing and should be celebrated.

When I got divorced in 2012, I honestly never dreamed I would be married again so soon. But the hand of Providence is so clearly evident in the forming (and reforming) of my family.  It's been a long time getting to where we are now, and grace and redemption have brought us to a level of restoration that wouldn't be possible without our faith.

When I remarried and moved from South Carolina to Washington, DC, my ex-husband moved back to his parents' house in North Carolina, taking our son with him. Originally, we'd agreed to have him stay in Greenville so our son could finish out the year in his school (I didn't want too much upheaval all at once for the little guy). That plan got changed suddenly when my ex informed me he was moving, barely a week before it happened.  I wasn't pleased at all, but we found a way to compromise temporarily.  Then, we started fighting over what the next years would bring, and it was not pretty. There were threats, a restraining order, lawyers, depositions, court dates, angry phone calls, and lots of tears and grief, until, finally, I quit fighting.  I was weary and getting more and more broken with every frustrated and blocked attempt of getting my way. And I knew that my child would look back someday to see the fights and the bitter feelings between his parents, and it would not make him feel more secure or loved.

If I truly believe in the sovereignty of God, I have to accept that, whatever the past mistakes that were made, this is where we're at now, and I need to find creative ways to nurture life, not speak death.  So I stopped fighting the status quo and instead looked forward, trying to love my son and make him confident of his security in his family, even though it is spread out and a little different than the norm.

It's not been easy, let me assure you.  I still fight with my ex sometimes (a hallmark of our tempestuous marriage, I'm sure!).  We're both saddled with astronomical debts to lawyers, and I honestly don't know we'll pay them.  I hope God will provide, somehow.  But we try to resolve things with our son in mind now.  It isn't a game to see which parent wins and who is the loser.  Because when fighting happens, our child is the loser.  And I don't want that.

Currently, my son lives with his dad in North Carolina, where he is close to graduating from Kindergarten.  Maybe he'll attend a great DC school in the future, but for now, I get him about every other weekend and on school holidays.  Sometimes he comes here, and other times we drive down to my in-laws' place in NC, a couple hours from where my ex and son now live, since we like to visit them a lot.  And there're always the Skype calls!

These have turned into Lego builds via Skype calls.  We line our computer screens up just right,
and we can watch each other make awesome things, giving suggestions, and telling stories while we do it.

My husband is also divorced, and has a son. He shares custody with an ex who lives just 20 minutes from us, and we get to have that son a lot more often.  I coordinate school pickups and dropoffs with my stepson's mother, and we all work hard to get along.  We're friendly to one another, and no, it was not always like that!

I still can hardly believe, when I think of the antagonism we've all lived in for so long, that we are actually friends now, all working together for the sake of our children.  It's hard to thrive when you're filled with resentment, someone told me recently, and it's so very true.

Being a stepmom is tough.  It's made even more difficult when the son I birthed is so far away in a different state most of the time.  Add in a new baby, and you'd think my affections would be varied for each of my kids, right?  But the miraculous reality is, I love all of my children an infinite amount.  It amazes me.  Sure, it can be tiring at times. I maintain the custody calendar to coordinate the rotation of two different boys between three separate sets of parents, in three states!  My son has pretty severe ADHD, my stepson is four (with all the struggles and hardships that come with being four), and I'm exclusively breastfeeding, babywearing, and cloth diapering a five month old daughter! But it's so worth it, because my kids know they are loved, and we, their parents, have worked hard to create a safe space in our family. We are Lutheran, Episcopal, and non-denom/Baptist, and all of us to are good parents to our kids, committed to raising them in the faith, even as our family grows.

Of course, with an unconventional family like mine, we don't grow in the usual ways!  My stepson's mom got remarried last year, so now there's a new stepdad (whose name is the same as my son's, so we tack "Big" in front of his name to differentiate), and they coincidentally had a baby girl same time as my daughter was born. The girls were born literally days apart.  So my stepson has two half-sisters!

My ex just got engaged to be married to a divorcee with four kids, so there will soon be lots of step-siblings for my son.  We've got step-siblings and half-siblings coming out our ears! But it's so beautiful.

This Christmas, we went to the National Zoo for ZooLights, and most of the family was there, minus my ex, who had to work.  On Christmas Day, my son's father came and celebrated with us together as a family.  Birthday parties have been combined family endeavours. I hope we can have lots more of these blended family events where we're all together.  Maybe it looks a little weird, but in the long run, I think it paints a beautiful picture of restoration and reconciliation.

One really great "side-effect" to sharing custody of our sons with their other parents is that we don't have them all the time.  Yup, that's right, I celebrate that fact!  It means I get to be a mother of three, yet still enjoy bonding with my husband, and, with my newborn, in a way that a newlywed and then first-time parent enjoys.  I get to go grocery shopping with only one kid to wrangle!  It is certainly a luxury I don't take for granted.

Join the conversation

In what ways have you seen relationships restored in an unusual or surprising way in your life?
Do you have broken relationships with people with whom you wish you could pursue peace?
If you aren't there yet (and that's okay--it takes time to heal; believe me, I know!), in what ways do you save the space for them, in hope of a reconciliation in the future?

I ask, because there are still people in my extended family who refuse to repair the broken gap, and I need encouragement to not give up on them.

Ash Wednesday, 2014

I attended two Ash Wednesday services today.  In the early morning, my family went to St. Paul's, an Anglo-Catholic (that's a real term) church we regularly visit.  My day started out with penitence and sobriety, peace and reflection.  My forehead was marked with the sign of the cross.

Then it got busy.  I yelled at my kids.  I thought unkind thoughts of others.  I was not patient.  I was not kind. I was so busy and rushed.  No time for Jesus.  No time to contemplate the reality of my mortality.  No time for any self-examination or repentance.  I really needed to start the day over, to try once more to get it right.

So I went to the evening service at Church of the Advent, an Anglo-Baptist (that's a made up, but apt, term) church we attend every Sunday evening.  My noisy soul quieted. I prayed the prayers of repentance. I experienced the peace I needed once more.  I slowed down and reminded myself of the mercy of God.  More ashes went on my forehead.

And then I went right home and got busy and rushed and impatient and, oh, so sinful again.  What's the deal?  Why can't I hang on to that peace in my life when I'm not on my knees, actively repenting, humble and sober before God?

Oh.  Well, duh.  Maybe I ought to do more repenting and a little less yelling and rushing, eh?  I needed this lesson today, on the first day of Lent.  To keep up the repenting, continually.  To pursue a repentant, humble spirit.  It's not so easy as running all around town fielding stares at the smudge of dirt on my forehead!  It takes intentionality, it requires community.

Invitation to a Holy Lent

The first Christians observed with great devotion the days of our Lord's passion and resurrection, and it became the custom of the Church to prepare for them by a season of penitence and fasting.  This season of Lent provided a time in which converts to the faith were prepared for Holy Baptism.  It was also a time when those who, because of notorious sins, had been separated from the body of the faithful were reconciled through penitence and forgiveness, and restore to the fellowship of the Church.  Thereby, the whole congregation was put in mind of the message of pardon and absolution set forth in the Gospel of our Saviour, and of the need which all Christians continually have to renew their repentance and faith.  I invite you, therefore, in the name of the Church, to the observance of a holy Lent, by self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God's holy Word.