the Hope I find in the Garden

picture: www.lostseed.com

"Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, "My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will."  Matthew 26:39

It's a hard portion of scripture.  The anguish in the garden.  Those He counted on were mere humans and asleep.  He anguished to the point of sweating blood.  I don't like it.  My Savior--all-knowing--knowing what was to come.  It was part of the Plan, yet He struggled with the anticipation, with acceptance.  He was fully God, but He was fully human as well.

Yes, it's hard to read.  Even harder to see depicted. I want to fast forward to the resurrection, to the defeat of pain and death and evil.  To the Hope.  To the realization of the Big-G-Good.  Yet, I miss out if I fast-forward.  I miss out on the hope in the midst of the torment of the garden.

Jesus asked His Father if this cup may be taken from Him...Jesus Himself asked this.

When we were going through my infant son Aidan's illness and death, I remember many moments when I anguished.  When I didn't want to be brave.  When I didn't want God's comfort in the midst of the pain...I wanted the pain to go away.  I wanted the cup to be taken from me, from Aidan, from my family.

And I felt guilty.  Deep down I wanted God's Plan,  God's Good for my life.  But when being brutally honest, I did NOT want God's Plan for me to include losing a son.  The Liar was there to tell me that I must not really love God, that I wasn't satisfied enough with Him to accept His will.

Then my Lord gently pointed me to the Garden.  To where He asked the same thing--please, if there is any other way to accomplish Your purpose, Lord, take this from me.

I find great comfort in knowing that even Jesus felt this way.

The key is that He didn't leave it there.  We know He went on to say--but not my will, but Yours.  And so did I.  So do I.

I don't want my own will (sometimes I think I do--that's for sure!).  I want God's Good.  For me, for those I love, and for His Kingdom.  And sometimes God's Good is hard.

But in the garden, for a brief moment, He asked for a way out of the hard.  It's OK when I do too.  There is no guilt in wanting a way out.  Jesus' example is there.

As long as I am resigned to God's will and not my own.  And through the tears, the anguish that this life sometimes brings, I can freely ask for relief, for another way.  Jesus did.

Current struggles are not as intense as losing my son, or some other life-alterers I've faced.  But I have the same feelings of wanting it to go away, and the brief guilt for not accepting.  For wanting things to be different.  The garden reminds me.

I can rest in knowing a loving Father hears me and loves me and hurts for me in my pain.  He sees it.  He is not offended at my desire for the pain to pass. 


And He rejoices in the offering that doesn't come from feeling--not my will God, but Yours.

Yes, there is Hope in the garden.

This post is linked up with other Holy Week reflections at Holy Experience.

(in which I blabber on like you are interested...)

It's true, bloggies, I'm back.  My crazy week-plus is over and I think I can pull off a blog post or two this week.  I missed you!  I missed reading posts and interacting with you.  However, I did enjoy my blog-break once I accepted the fact that I was just going to miss a bunch of posts...and let it go.

Anyway, here's what went down since I last posted, folks.

Last weekend, the kids and I got to go to the Rock and Worship Road Show, featuring Sidewalk Prophets, Remedy Drive, Fee, Family Force Five, Francesca Battistelli, David Crowder Band, and Mercy Me.  We got there early and placed Phase Ten Dice as we waiting in line for the concert.  It was bright--notice the squint and the shades.

Here are the kids waiting for the concert to begin...

We had a great time.  I had never seen any of those groups in person, and enjoyed them all.  Well, OK, I might be a little old for Family Force 5--but they were certainly entertaining--as were their screaming fans!  I LOVED David Crowder Band.  If you get a chance to see this show...it's totally worth your $10 at the door.

My kiddos and my hubby had spring break this past week.  I, however, had a big event at the end of the week that had me working 12 hour days.  Boo.  They helped me a lot, and I managed to take Tuesday off altogether and we had a family day.  We planned to head to Denver for a museum or two, but a predicted snowstorm kept us in town.  Instead, we did some shopping together and then took in Alice in Wonderland in 3D.  I never liked the Alice story before--but really enjoyed this version.  Alice was a wonderful heroine, and her adventures kept us all engaged.  Johnny Depp always does weird so well--and he does the Mad Hatter in a mad-yet-loveable way.

And, I might just have to work "Off with her head!" into my vernacular, cause it looks so satisfying to say when Helena Bonham Carter says it.

On the way home from the movies we got caught in the predicted snowstorm and had a treacherous ride back.  We got several inches of snow in a matter of a half hour or so--it was crazy!  I really appreciated snuggling together when we finally made it to our warm and cozy home.

Our Easter community event (Easterrific) pulled together well.  I worked hard, and in many ways have not recuperated yet...but I am a few good night's sleeps away.  Another snowstorm kept the turnout lower than I would have liked, but that is out of my control (I had to keep reminding myself of this).  We had a carnival and The Easter Path--an interactive journey through the Easter story that I worked really hard on.  I think it turned out to be a meaningful experience for many.

While my family and I were busy Easterrificing, my middle sister, Kim was flying into town for a girls weekend together.   We laughed a lot!  And although I was tired, I had a faboo time.  I hope Kim did too--we miss her!  Here is a pic of the girls at lunch on Sunday--Kim has been joking that she needs to get glasses.

We also made really cool washer necklaces...here is Kim and Pickle working on theirs.

Here are the ones I made before they were dry.  In fact, they still might not be dry...we were a little heavy handed with the glaze...

We all went to The Thorn--a fantastic, sensory-overloaded, intense Easter play put on by a huge local church.  It is a meaningful part of our Easter celebration--as we go most years.  This was Kim's and Bubba's first time and Pickle brought her "valentine" for his first time too.  You can get a glimpse of the spectacularness here.

I took Monday off from work to hang out with my sissies and mom some more...and we shopped, went to Pickle's dance class and enjoyed a family pizza night at our house at the end of the day.  It was after pizza that my 3 year old nephew might have squeezed my bottom and tried to pass it off on my hubby.  The kid's hysterical!

Today, it's time to get back into the swing of things.  I had my morning at Panera, a start-to-catch-up day at work, and have a short list of stuff I want to do tonight.  Mostly, I want to go to bed early.  Cause I'm beat, bloggies.

Here's hoping for more meaningful posts to come...thanks for letting me blabber my way back into blogland.

a short bloggie-break

Hello bloggies.

Just popping in to say that I am taking an intentional bloggie break this week.

This week I'm...

*  deep into our Easterrific community event I'm leading at church--to be held tomorrow night!
*  taking (not enough, but some) time to be with my kids since they are on spring break.
*  anticipating my sister flying in Friday for a girl's weekend!
*  excited about the dozen people getting baptized on Sunday--and that I had the privilege of teaching their baptism class.
*  not sleeping too well with all sorts of details spinning, spinning, spinning through my head.
*  digging out from a spring snowstorm that came in with a fury Tuesday night, and hoping the one predicted for Friday night stays away long enough for Easterrific to happen and my sis to get into town.
*  wishing I had time to spring-i-fy my house.
*  missing blog-world--cause I haven't read my blog feed and know I'm missing all sorts of wonderfulness.
*  trusting God, cause He's got everything under control.

I'll be back blabbing at you next week!

Company Girl Coffee 3.19

It's Friday and I'm hooking up with the Company Girls for our weekly blog chat.

It must be Colorado.  It was 70 degrees and sunny yesterday and today it's snowing!  They say we are expecting 7 inches at our house.  Schools closed due to the predictions--but we are sitting here around noon with nothing on the roads.  Pickle has been on Spring Break (gotta love snow on Spring Break!) since Wednesday anyway, and Bubba has been home with fever/cold/pinkeye and was heading in for his last day before break.  Now we are all home and enjoying a VERY lazy morning.


I have been pretty absorbed with the Easter event we have coming up a week from today (!) at church.  I have been working on it for a long while, but this week it was time to nail everything down.  I spent lots of time gathering volunteers and figuring out details.  My new office set-up at church is really helping me tune out the office hubbub and to focus!  I'm so glad we changed it around, even if many at church have commented that it looks like I've been given a time out. :0)

As I mentioned, we have been enjoying some nice weather here, and along with Daylight Savings Time, it's really making it feel like Spring.  Nothing is green here yet, and I haven't decorated my house for Spring yet...but I'm getting in the mood. Are you?? Even the snow isn't bothering me, cause I know it won't last long.

We don't have big plans for Spring Break, but I am hoping to steal away some time from a busy week at church to do some fun stuff with the kids.  Hubby is off too (a perk of working at a school!), so even if I'm busy--he will hang with the kids.  And the whole family will help with making things happen for the Easter event too--working together is fun.

One thing we do have planned is to head here on Sunday:

We are pretty excited--it's only $10 at the door and general seating so we'll be getting there early and camping out in line.  It will be a fun day.

That's all for today, cause I need to turn my lazy morning into some afternoon productivity.