silent saturday

Waiting is hard.

Waiting in silence is even harder.

I keep thinking about this Silent Saturday wedged between Good Friday and Easter Sunday. This day we know very little about.

What did the disciples do? Were they crying? Praying? Angry? Hopeful? I don't know what they were doing, but I know what they were hearing.

Nothing.

All they could do was wait.

For what? They didn't even know. For how long? They had no clue.

I'm sure the night-hours seemed darker. I'd imagine the questions kept coming and the fear grew crippling. I'm sure it felt like they were holding their breath, hoping against hope that Jesus was still who He said He was and that the last few years hadn't been a complete waste.

But their waiting was met only with deafening silence...

Just like yours and mine sometimes is.

So on this Silent Saturday, I'm reminding us of what we know to be true:

Keep waiting.

Redemption is coming.

why this friday is good

I'm thinking about this day we call Good Friday. And how it felt anything but good at the time.

It was dark and heavy.

A day with more questions than answers.

More confusion than peace.

More doubt than faith.

Despair hung thick in the air, hearts crushed and despondent. The soul-depth disappointment in God was palpable and suffocating.

How could He? Why would He? What do I do now?

None of it made sense. It didn't line up with all they had seen and heard and experienced. The miracles... the teachings... the love... it all hung in the balance of two wooden beams on a hillside.

Everything they thought their Messiah would be, died that day.

All their hopes and dreams shattered with His nail-split hands. They'd given up everything to follow Him -- families, careers, homes -- and now this. A horrible, wretched death.

Of Him.

Of their hearts.

Of their hope.

They didn't know what we know now, looking back thousands of years later. That life comes out of death. That new beginnings spring forth from the worst of endings.

That hope rises.

To me, this Friday is so very good because of the mere fact that it was so very bad.

It reminds me that the dark and heavy times of my life are not devoid of Him, even when I can't see Hm or feel Him. That doubt doesn't nullify my faith. And that questioning isn't wrong.

It reminds me to let everything I think my Messiah should be, die. Because He is so much more than my imaginary version of Him, made in my own image. He loves, redeems, and saves me in ways I would never expect and could never imagine.

And it gives me hope that someday... Someday I may even call my darkest Friday "good".

push.

Brené Brown says it best:

"Faith isn't an epidural. It's a midwife who stands next to me saying, 'Push. It's supposed to hurt.'"

THIS. 

This is what I wish I'd learned in church growing up. This is what I now know the faith-journey to be. And yet this flies in the face of the breed of Christianity I was raised in.

Faith was a balm. Salvation was a rescue plan. Jesus was a Savior from all things hard and uncomfortable and icky.

And then life happened.

And I discovered none of that was true.

Jesus didn't come to immunize me against pain or grief or heartache.

He didn't wrap me in bubble wrap and send me on my holy way, safe from harm and hurt. He didn't say I wouldn't (or—gasp!—shouldn't) grieve, be uncomfortable, battle illness, or face insurmountable hardship. He didn't promise that things would be easy or fair or fun.

What He did was assure me that I would never be alone.

God came down to the messy hell-hole that this life can be and chose to sit in it with me. He's right here, sitting cross-legged beside me in the dirt.

He's not trying to fix anything. He's not spouting platitudes—"Let go, and let Me. I'll work all things together for good."—{GAH!}—or even trying to make sense out of the senseless. He's just being present with me. Holding my hand and my heart. And assuring me I don't have to do this alone.

I'm not spared. I'm held. 

When I stop looking for Him to deliver a wonderdrug or bippity-boppity-boo me into a blessed life, I'm able to recognize the gift of His simple presence. His simple, powerful, heart-strengthening, more-than-enough presence right here with me.

Push. 

It's supposed to hurt.

And then I realize what it means to love like He does. What it means to be Christ to you as you face your own darkness and grief.

It doesn't mean pretending to have answers or presuming I can fix things. It certainly doesn't mean telling you what you should or shouldn't be doing.

It means simply being willing to sit in the pain and discomfort with you. And just be.

What I can do is assure you that you won't be alone while you push.

sterkte

Sterkte.

It's one of my favorite South African-isms.

Its an Afrikaans expression used when someone is facing a challenging or difficult situation, or are about to embark on something that makes them nervous or anxious. The closest phrase we have in English would be 'Good luck,' but that comes nowhere close to capturing it. At all.

Sterkte.

It literally means, simply, 'Strength'.

It's used to wish someone the strength to persevere whatever hardship they are experiencing or whatever nerve-wracking situation they are facing.

It's used to call out the strength you already see in someone's heart, even when they can't see it or feel it themselves.

It's used to infuse strength by affirming that you believe in them and their ability to keep moving forward, by the grace of God.

That's why 'Good Luck' would never suffice as a substitute.

Sterkte speaks courage.

Builds hope.

Demonstrates not-alone-ness.

And today, sweet Gritty family, it is all I have to offer to you.

Sterkte.

[photo credit]

{guest post} when God doesn't give you what you asked for

If you don't know my friend Ally Vesterfelt, you need to. She is genuine and passionate, and a beautifully honest writer. She's also the managing editor of Prodigal Magazine, one of my favorite corners of the Internet. I appreciate the ways Ally embraces the "grit" in life and invites God to meet her there.

:: :: ::

This last year I prayed big.

It started because I read a book by Mark Batterson called The Circle Maker. The thought of praying the way he prayed (persistently, for specific things) had never really occurred to me.

Usually, I liked to keep my prayers small and manageable.

I didn't want it to seem like I was being greedy or anything.

But when I read Batterson's book I started to see how praying for things I actually wanted (regardless if they were big or small) wasn't being selfish, it was just being honest — and being honest was what prayer was really about, a dynamic, authentic conversation with God.

So my prayers went from being really "spiritual" all the time to sometimes not-so-much.

I would pray for things like a second bookshelf to house my growing collection. I would pray for warm weather for an outdoor picnic with my husband. I would pray for friendship with a person in a similar stage of life.

Maybe that sounds elementary, but for me it was ground-breaking.

Shocking, actually.

I would pray for a specific need to be met by a specific day, and sure enough, it would be. Or I would pray for something that wasn't a need, that was just a luxury, and many times I would get the gift I had asked for.

But there was one prayer I prayed that wasn't answered.

Granted, it was a big prayer. A little far-fetched even. One of those that, when you write it down, you think to yourself: I'd like to see you take on this one, God.

The request had to do with a specific financial debt I owed. I wanted it to be paid off by the end of the year.

So I wrote down the prayer and the specific number, just as I had been doing before. I started making payments whenever I had extra cash, or money left over in a particular budget. For a while, I was really vigilant about it. I prayed about it every day, and the energy to conquer the debt consumed my mind.

But after a few months the prayer slipped to the back of my journal, and while I did occasionally pray that the debt would be paid by the date I had set, I didn't think about it with nearly the conviction I had when I first started.

So when the end of the year came, and the debt wasn't paid off, I cringed a little.

Not because God hadn't given me what I had asked for, but because He had reminded me that,

while He is a God who hears me and cares about what I want, he has something as much to teach me by saying "no" as he does by saying "yes."

I know this, but sometimes I live like I don't know it.

In fact, sometimes I think this is what kept me from praying "big" prayers in the first place. I was worried that if I didn't say it right, or if my heart wasn't in exactly the right place, I would never get what I asked for.

And when I act like prayer is about getting what I ask for, I miss the point altogether.

It's okay to want something (even admit we want it) and still not have it.

The second thing I learned was that, when it comes to what I have and what I don't have, I am a co-creator with God. God has more resources than I do, more grace, more wisdom, and far more patience — but I can't expect Him to answer prayers I am not willing to answer myself.

I have to be willing to make the sacrifices, fork over the cash, go visit the friend, reach out to the person in need, stay up all night working —

All the while praying for God to fill in the gaps.

Many times in my life God has answered prayers i didn't know how to pray, or that I couldn't have dreamed up in a million years. Other times I have begged him for things, laid everything on the line, and he has said "no," or worse, been silent.

There is no reward/payoff system, no formula we can use to make prayer "work," for us, to help get us what we want.

But I think that's actually the point I'm trying to make.

That prayer is its own reward, and that as my prayers change, I change with them.

And for now that is enough.

:: :: ::

Allison is a writer, managing editor of Prodigal Magazine and author of Packing Light: Thoughts on Living Life with Less Baggage (Moody, 2013). She lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota with her husband Darrell. You can follow her daily on Twitter or Facebook.

How do you handle God's "no"s or silences?