Last blog was back in February. I have missed Lent altogether but today it is Good Friday, Black Friday, the day we celebrate, (so not the right word), remember Jesus’ crucifixion. We were singing a lovely song this morning, Thank You For the Cross until I realised how totally inadequate those words were. The cross was horrific. Watching anyone suffer, let alone the excruciating pain of crucifixion, would have been beyond bearing. It was bloody, and filthy and beyond all control. I watched Mike recover, after falling off the roof. My normal straightforward, strong companion, husband of decades was battered and broken and sleepy, and in so much pain. It made me feel dislocated from the world, it was all I could see, or feel. What can I do to make it better, to stop it hurting so much… So thinking about the horror of the crucifixion made me stop and breathe a little faster.
I am ashamed at how easily I take God for granted, what he has done for me, what he continues to do for me. I take for granted being able to push open the door to the throne room, to enter into the immediate presence of our beautiful, perfect God. Sometimes I run, sometimes I sneak around the edge, sometimes I go in on my knees, but always he opens his arms and he turns his head to listen to what comes pouring out my soul. That is what thosedreadful, ugly hours meant. It is done. Gratitude, thankfulness, blessing. I’m not sure there is a word that is sufficient to describe what we owe Jesus.
And there is nothing more to say except it is finished!
And so is my next novel.