Lent...His way

Do you know what is Lent?  According to google:

Lent noun /lent/  The period preceding Easter that in the Christian Church is devoted to fasting, abstinence, and penitence in commemoration of Christ's fasting in the wilderness. In the Western Church it runs from Ash Wednesday to Holy Saturday and so includes forty weekdays

I first noticed "Lent" via social media in 2011.  Many people I knew on facebook communicated they would abstain from social media, TV or some other thing during Lent.  When Lent 2012 rolled over, I found myself wanting to understand this "lent-business" a bit more.  Having grown up in a Catholic country, for some reason I associated something like lent with catholicism.  But I was open to learn and to understand.

The concept of choosing something to abstain from, for the purposes of preparing and remembering Easter was nice enough.  But I could not decide on what - TV? facebook? food? - to abstain from...that would draw me close to the Lord.  Would not being on facebook draw me to the Lord and His passion and suffering?  I would answer yes, but I wasn't sure.

So, after about a couple of days thinking about this I dropped the idea all together - why would I need Lent to draw me close to God?  So instead, I did something unconventional.  I told the Lord, "Lord, if you really want me to join this Lent-business, you will have to choose something for me to give up, cause I don't know what would make me meditate more on you and your journey to Calvary"

To be honest, I thought that was the end of it.  I moved on.  Lived my life while I witnessed on twitter and facebook other's journeys during Lent.

But apprarently, God had answered my prayer.  He was going to prepare me to journey through Calvary by taking away many precious things in my life.  It was not going to be on my terms.

During March my son became ill with the flu.  As I nursed him to health, I because very exhausted.  And before I knew it I had caught it, except this time the flu came back with a vengence.

I was literally in bed for 7 days.  It took me a total of 10 days to get back to something close to 'normal'.  I don't remember ever being this sick.  But here I was bed-ridden, unable to do much at all.

God stripped away many things:

My health
My ability to host guests in my house
My ability to care for my kids and my home
My ability to plan and host a missions conference
My ability to drive
My love for food
My Sleep
Even...dare I say it...My friends

I felt miserable.  I felt lonely.  I felt useless.  And I had trouble letting go of my pride.

And on the worst night, when I could not breathe properly, when my migraine hit me over and over, when my nose bleeds kept on coming, when my entire body ached, when I went from sweating profusely to freezing to death, when my throat hurt so much it felt like a razor was hutting it into two, when I had lost track of how many pills I had taken....

I cried out to Jesus......."Jesus, where are you?  Why is this happening to me?"

and I heard a still voice..."Right here, carrying you.  This is the Lent you asked for.  Would you let me take you to Calvary?"

When I woke up after one of the many slumbering naps I was having, with cracked and dry lips, so thirsty for a drink, Jesus took me to John 19:

 ²⁸ Jesus knew that his mission was now finished, and to fulfill Scripture he said, “I am thirsty.”^[g] 29 A jar of sour wine was sitting there, so they soaked a sponge in it, put it on a hyssop branch, and held it up to his lips. ³⁰ When Jesus had tasted it, he said, “It is finished!” Then he bowed his head and released his spirit.

I had read this so many times, since I was a kid listening to the Easter Story in Sunday School Classes, but that was the first time I FELT the raw emotions.  Jesus, in essence, led me to feel a bit of how He felt that day.

And when I woke up so many days unable to stand up because everything in my body hurt, Jesus took me to:

 ¹ Then Pilate had Jesus flogged with a lead-tipped whip. ² The soldiers wove a crown of thorns and put it on his head, and they put a purple robe on him. ³ “Hail! King of the Jews!” they mocked, as they slapped him across the face.

My flu-pain was no comparison to being whipped.  But something was happening...I began to identify with the pain Jesus went through in order to save us.  I began to APPRECIATE it more deeply.  To be more THANKFUL.  To even ask Him for forgiveness for having taken me this long.

And when I was cold and shivering and all I wanted was to snug into my bed.  When I could not stand the thought of sitting on a hard waiting room chair at my doctor's office...Jesus reminded me of the times when He was being taken to see the High Priests, then Pilate, and imagine what it must have felt like to be in jail in between, probably unable to have a proper place to even sit...

And then, when I felt discouraged at the thought of "where are all my friends?"...and when thoughts like "why hasn't anyone called to check on me, to encourage me, to say hello?...and when I struggled as I felt emotionally abandoned, Jesus reminded me of the PAIN He suffered, even before being nailed to the cross, as the disciples fled, and as His people rejected Him, choosing Barabbas instead.

And, as I lay in my bed and at times wondered how much longer will the pain continue, if that day was the worst, and when I would be restore to health (because I knew with the flu there would be an end to it), Jesus took me to Calvary, to the crucifixion, and to Jesus.  In His pain and suffering, calling out to the Father:  "Eli Eli, lama sabachthani?  (My God, my God, why hast though forsaken me?) (Mat 27:46)

No, I'm not Jesus, and the flu I had deems in comparison to the journey to Calvary.  I almost feel embarrassed to share this with you.  But I know I must.  This was a real encounter I had with Jesus.  He drew me close to Him....the lesson was not to be more humble, or to give me a lecture on how to serve others, or even on priorities in my life...it was simple:  FEEL my pain.  It was real.  It was raw.  Yes, Jesus was fully God and fully Human, and sometimes we forget the "fully human" part as we reflect on His dying on the cross for our sins.

Lent for me this year was about that - to feel, even in a minuscule way, Jesus' suffering so that I may appreciate the immense love He indeed has for each one of us.