The beginning of Holy Week

Jesus is going to die on Friday. 

That's what I keep thinking.

You can go through twenty-one Holy Weeks, and yet each time Palm Sunday comes around you grapple with a gaping, gasping afresh realization: Jesus is going to die on Friday.

I think about it again and my heart slips into my lungs, making it hard to breathe. It's the beginning of Holy Week, which tends to feel both reverent and loose -- as if I'm teetering on the edge of a very large cliff, staring down at my miseries and burdens, all the while knowing the Saviour of the world is deep in the midst of saving me.

We were handed his execution date a long time ago. We break bread and remember him, but this week he's dying all over again. We know Sunday is coming and that there is hope, but Friday comes first and my mourning has already begun.

I mourn my faithlessness.

I mourn my pride.

I mourn my denial of him -- and not just three times like his dear friend Peter -- but more, so many more. He is my Lord and my Saviour and there are innumerable times where I have cast him aside. Holy Week brings that all back to me.

It is here, during these days, where I am most aware of how utterly weak my fickle human flesh is.

I could've been the girl to sing hosanna and five days later yell crucify him. I could've waved a branch like a flag in praise of him, only to turn my back when the nighttime came. I could've loved him on Palm Sunday but left him on Friday along with all of his friends.

I am a runner. I get scared when times get hard. I deny; I betray; and most certainly I run away. And yet what causes me the most grief is the understanding that he knows all of this, and still chooses to have nails pummelled into the beautiful hands which formed me.

Jesus is going to die on Friday.

For a girl he loves madly, a girl who doesn't deserve him. And yet he wants me, and suffers for me, and forgives me over and over again.

I realize how desperately I love him. And I pray I'll love him even more.

"To make of his story something that could neither startle, nor shock, nor terrify, nor excite, nor inspire a living soul is to crucify the Son of God afresh." -- Dorothy Sayers

Dear girl who thinks she's not enough

Dear girl who thinks she’s not enough,

My best friend's sister just had a baby girl, and already I'm praying that her baby girl will grow up feeling confident in her worth and enough-ness. But I'm not that naive. I know when you're a person trying to find your place in this world, your inadequacy shouts far louder than your gifts.

Each day I wake up and try to choose that I am enough, and still there are days where I am crippled by my insecurities. I used to think I could get to the point where I would always feel enough. Now I'm realizing that enough is not a feeling, but a choice.

I could tell you a million times over that your worth is far greater than all the stars gathered up together in the sky.

I could tell you that I'd pour your worth into the sea, only to hear it clang like a tambourine and come crashing back upon me, its tidal wave astronomical in strength, gushing across the plains and hills and valleys, cresting along the barriers of the Earth.

I could tell you that I'd like to take a measuring tape and wrap your worth around the circumference of the globe, only to see it wrap around a thousand times, immeasurable, a never ending ruler of your worth.

We could do these things together; I could show you your strength and dazzling significance, but still, if you haven't chosen to see that you're worth far more than all of these, you'll stay weary and crippled and believing you're not enough. You and I both know that you have a great deal more to offer the world than a weary and crippled girl.

Sometimes I like to dream about what the world would look like if we all chose to believe that how God made us is entirely good enough. And then I go one step further and start to dream about what the world would look like if we not only believed we were enough, but believed that who we are is just plain good.

When I am feeling most afraid and un-enough, I go back to God's words in the beginning where he calls you and me and the flowers and the birds and the trees and the ocean and the thousands of stars and the millions of grains of sand good. And then I think, "If I am good in God's eyes -- eyes that see beauty far more detailed and intricate and stunning than I could ever see -- why am I not good in my own?"

This is who I am:

I am a sinner -- elaborately flawed by my own self. I screw up consistently, so much so that somedays I don't even realize how much I have sinned.

But I am saved and forgiven and enough. I am worthy and valuable and significant -- not because of anything I did, but because Jesus has deemed me his.

You are all of this, too.

All of the people of the world could affirm your worth and value and enough-ness, and yet if you don't choose to believe it for yourself, you'll never believe it. 

Dear girl who thinks she's not enough -- you are.

But enough is a choice and not a feeling. It's a daily, sometimes minutely in my case, decision to retrain your thoughts: I am enough as I am. I am enough as I am. I am enough as I am. 

You have so much to offer the world: beauty and art and rare gifts that can only come from your hands, your voice, your beautiful brain. But ultimately you have to choose to believe that.

I hope you do. And I hope you know this: the world is a much, much lovelier place with you in it.

When your sister has a baby

When your sister is expecting a baby, she asks you to come and see her. It's the day after you get home from Africa and your eyes are tired and your mind is mushy with jet leg, but you've missed her dearly so you go to her house. She hands you a gift bag, which she says is your "welcome home" present, and she and her husband sit on their couch staring at you, waiting for you to open it. You do. It's a baby onesie that says I love my aunt, so of course you promptly burst into tears.

When your sister is expecting a baby, she sends you the ultrasound. You stare at the slope of his already defined nose, and the purse of his already puckered lips, and his head -- his beautiful head, and you think I can't believe I'm in love with someone I've never even met before. But you are. You're head over heels and he doesn't even know you exist.

When your sister is expecting a baby, you think of all the ways life is changing. You think about how next year at this time he'll be a few months old, and in October he'll be crawling, and at Christmas he'll almost be one! You wonder what colour his eyes will be, and if he'll have hair, and secretly hope he'll grow up to be a writer.

When your sister is expecting a baby, you write him love notes. You start with Dear baby nephew, you are already so desperately loved by me, people might think I'm pitiful. You make a vow to overlove and 0vervalue him all the days of your life. You go to the book store and read children's books that make you cry because he's growing up so fast -- and he hasn't even left the womb yet.

When your sister is expecting a baby, you buy him every tiny shirt and pants that you see at Old Navy. The baby part of the store is like a gravitational pull -- you can't say no even if you try. So you find miniature moccasins, and Roots sweatpants and then you buy yourself ones in adult size to match.

When your sister is expecting a baby, she texts you and says she's having contractions, and you can't do much of anything because he's coming (!!). You watch an episode of Grey's Anatomy to take your mind off what's happening a city away, but you can't stop thinking of your sister. This anticipation is far better than even Christmas. You wonder and pray and keep wondering and praying.

And hours later your phone rings.

And your sister tells you Noah Justice has arrived.

When your sister has a baby, you go to the hospital to see them. You see his face -- everything pronounced and tiny and beautiful. His eyes are wide and deep blue and staring up at you. You think how can I possibly feel this much love? Your capacity to love someone grows astronomically. You'll never love the same after this. Time goes fast and slow all at once. He stares at your sister and her husband, pure love radiating from his tiny body. You hold him and whisper promises into his downy hair, telling him how strong his momma is, and what a brave daddy he has.

When your sister has a baby, you start to understand God's love a fraction more. You think -- if God loves me half as much as I love this baby, he must love me very much --

...and yet you know deep inside he loves you infinitely more.

when the lilacs remind me of Your love

She picks me up from work today.

I hand her the tea and sit next to her.

The car still has that new smell, reminds me of a mixture of chlorine and the Garden Gallery. I look over at her and she is radiant.

She asks me if we can go pick some lilacs. It’s the last few lingering days of May and we can almost taste June now. And this winter was very long, and very hard, and you all know that because you felt it, too. Through that long, hard, seemingly never ending winter, we longed for spring. And spring has arrived, in all her succulent glory. She tells me she’s learning to bring the beauty inside. So when she asks me if we can go pick some lilacs, I say yes.

We drive around our little town of Dundas, on the hunt for that taste of spring. The sun is shining bright, and though the air is sort of nippy, we don't stop looking. And we find them, after a little bit of searching. Because sometimes things don’t happen as quickly as we hope for them to. But it doesn't mean you stop searching.

She grins when we spot them, tucked behind the few trees over there, and there’s a man waiting by the bus stop just down the hill, and a slight thrill runs through us when we go to take some flowers.

She inhales deeply, smelling them, and I watch her. Their fragrance is overwhelming in the best, most summery way, and we’re surrounded by purple and white and lavender and mauve, and they smell like all the prettiest things in the world. We gently pull them off, creating small bouquets in the center of our hands.

And the lilacs remind me of Your love.

“Look at them, Aliza,” she whispers. “Isn’t it amazing how God created these flowers purely for our enjoyment?”

I look at her and I see You.

I look at the blooms and I feel Your love.

We gather ourselves back into the car and head home, and when we get there she puts the lilacs in that green redeemed jar - because we are redeemed, and the lilacs are Your love, and every time I look at them, I see You and her and my redemption.

And the lilacs remind me of Your love.

She smiles again when she smells them, and I smile, too. Because her smile has so much meaning these days. The simple spring flowers fasten so much joy into her heart, and I wonder why it's so hard for me to find simplistic beauty all around like she does.

I look at her. I look at the flowers.

These lilacs remind me of Your love.

I pray they always do.

.