Ah, Home for Lent

The word home is still settling in our minds and still putting a smile on our faces. There have been appointments, and there are more to come, running here and there that needs doing, but to come back home after each time we leave the house is like a gift. To be here, standing in the door, waiting for Mark to come home after he has been gone a few minutes or hours instead of days is a present. To have gone to church and received both Word and Sacrament from my beloved and then to return to our home to cook lunch for him and get to watch him and John have time to play before he is off to a meeting. There is so much in life that is just amazing. I thought when we returned home that all these amazing things would stop some of the scary anxiety driven stuff that was happening to John and I both, but even though John has slept through a few nights and sleeps better when he is asleep he is still anxious and awake in the night at times. I still have nightmares off and on, but thankfully not every night. I think that the mental wounds will take a long time to heal, but being home, being with the person we love more than anyone on earth, having all this time to just be makes each passing day a smidge less anxious.

You may wonder what all this has to do with Lent. I will tell you on the very surface for us right now is the blessing of the amount of church services that goes on during Lent. Each time that we load up and go and then receive Word and Word and Sacrament is like a salve to our anxiety, an oasis in the desert, a moment of contact with heaven while we are yet here on earth. At home we say evening prayers with John and hope to soon add in morning devotions with him as well, Mark and I are praying the Litany together and reading through the Lenten devotion written by our good friend Pastor Walt Snyder. Each time we have contact with the Word we find a hair's breadth more peace. We will truly never be the same people who left here in November to head out for Omaha, time cannot be turned back and memories cannot be erased. With Word and Sacrament, with good and faithful friends and family, with the love of each other we will continue to be made new in Christ each day, and may each day find us more merciful, more loving and more determined to live here on earth like we belong in heaven.