Here is a devotion I wrote for Lent. It is based on Psalm 25.
To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul.
O my God, in you I trust;
do not let me be put to shame;
do not let my enemies exult over me.
Do not let those who wait for you be put to shame;
let them be ashamed who are wantonly treacherous.
Make me to know your ways, O Lord;
teach me your paths.
Lead me in your truth, and teach me,
for you are the God of my salvation;
for you I wait all day long.
Be mindful of your mercy, O Lord, and of you steadfast love,
for they have been from of old.
Do not remember the sins of my youth or my transgressions;
according to your steadfast love remember me,
for your goodness’ sake, O Lord!
Good and upright is the Lord;
therefore he instructs sinner in the way.
He leads the humble in what is right,
and teachers the humble his way.
All the paths of the Lord are steadfast love and faithfulness,
for those who keep his covenant and his decrees.
I am thinking about Psalm 25 while I’m making dough for Irish Beef hand pies. It’s a Martha Stewart recipe. I don’t think “obsessed” is the right word to express my admiration for both the Irish and Martha Stewart, but I won’t deny wishing to be Irish and that I had at least a quarter of Martha’s homemaking capabilities.
“David is so dramatic,” I’m thinking as I drop pieces of frozen butter into the flour.
I remember a time though, when I too, offered up a rather desperate plea to God. I was a Freshman at Calvin, and all I wanted to do was go home. “Christians are so boring!” I wailed to my parents. “I shoulda gone to U of I!”
But like the claddagh ring I wore, and my confidence that if I worked hard enough, I would be able to fold a fitted sheet as perfectly as Martha, there was something I wanted – something inviting – about the Christian faith.
One night I was in my loft, inches away from the ceiling, tired of hating Calvin, exhausted from being homesick, when I prayed, “I’ll do whatever you want – just make it so I don’t feel this way anymore.”
Talk about dramatic.
I wonder though, if this was my 19-year-old attempt of lifting up my soul to God. I didn’t know exactly what I wanted, or who I wanted to become. I knew I was holding on to who I was, and I knew it wasn’t working; that I had to let go so something else could develop.
So here I am, 26 years later, wrapping dough in wax paper then flattening it into a disc while contemplating if I could pray that prayer from a lonely winter’s night in 1995, again.
I don’t know, but if I’m honest, I’d like to feel different. It’s easy to blame the pandemic, but I’ve been feeling a vacancy of identity for a while now, and like so much else, Covid has illuminated it with something akin to a search light.
I will never be Irish, and until I get over my aversion to touching raw meat, or clean a bathroom, there’s not much hope that Martha will come a-callin’. But I can sit with David’s words. I can invite them to pierce my heart in the hope they’ll be a part of who I am and what I offer the world.
I place the dough on a shelf in the fridge. It needs to rest awhile before I can work on it again.
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