As I write this I am preparing worship resources for Lent. Lent begins during Marriage Week on the 13th February. The week begins with a celebration of ‘love’ and turns by mid-week into preparing for inward reflection and repentance as we enter Lent. We come to know the pain of ‘love’ during Lent and Holy Week. It is only on Easter day that we find that God always brings light to a bad situation; a tough relationship, to those who turn to him in faith – It is then this hope and truth is revealed as Christ is seen by friends and family. God defeats death in the rising of Christ from the depths of darkness. The worst fear is defeated.
I wonder if this Lent we could reflect on ‘love’. What is ‘love’? ‘Love’ is sacrificial, it is understanding and placing ourselves in another’s place and seeing the good in them. It is caring. It is thinking about the happiness of the other before the happiness of ‘me’. It is hard work – or can be. It can be particularly hard work when there is gossip involved and opinions, judgements, expressed that have formed from hearsay. Gossip can be very cruel, it can destroy the good as confidence in the love of the other is undermined through ill-chosen words. It amazes me sometimes that people who are trying to be supportive find it necessary to pass on harmful gossip to the subject, rather than offering support or challenging it!
So, during Lent we look inwards. We look at how our words and actions affect other people. Do we build people up or knock them down. If we feel someone has wronged us how do we deal with it? Lovingly or harshly? Do we try to help resolve the situation, or run away?
We are all on journeys of life, and this is what the Lent Course this year is about. Journeys with God. It can be hard – remember the Israelites spending 40 years in the wilderness looking for the Promised Land? The temptations were many and they succumbed many times and were rescued by God an equal number of times. This Lent, let us each examine our own lives; ask God for his forgiveness; but most of all ask him to change each of us into those loving people that he intends us to be. God created each of us in ‘love’, therefore let us honour that ‘love’ by living in ‘love’.
With Love
Ann