Quarantine: mid 17th century: from Italian quarantina ‘forty days’.
Today is day 31 of Lent. It’s hard to even remember we are in Lent….or perhaps we are actually viscerally reminded more than ever before, because of our physical (and spiritual?) quarantine. Perhaps we are desperately hoping these forty days will be over and the brightness of Easter Morning will be upon us. These days are instructive though. We don’t get to Easter morning without the darkness of Good Friday.
I was reminded of this meditation I wrote during Lent five years ago…seems especially appropriate today. What will you do with your quarantine?
With God's grace we make a choice to be born anew. It is a choice that changes everything! We see differently. Our eyes look to the hills from our own life valleys and see that God is the great keeper of our lives! Watching us constantly with us, before us, behind us, beside us. Never slumbering. And we see the divine in everything: in our valleys, in our hilltops, in our enemies, in ourselves. We feel differently. We feel empowered to completely surrender our lives to God. We exercise a radical obedience, listening for and to God's words, and following them, so ultimately we each may be blessing to others and the words. We feel free of worry and anxiety because we remember that God already has a dream for our lives, and by righteous faith, we live into that dream, drawing and acting on the divine power and potential that resides deep within us, magnificently woven into our DNA-Emmanuel! We act differently. We change our ways, our hearts, our minds away from the world and toward God, today. We choose transformation. We choose the story that death is not the end, only a new beginning; that there is always hope; that wholeness and healing is attainable and that new life and power emerges from the bloodied, beaten, lifeless body of our experiences. " - Born Anew in Becoming Who I Am
Day 31 #pilgrimagetojoy