Filling Space

This year I've decided, mostly at the last minute and for non-Lenten reasons, to give up sweets for lent. I thought it was a good way to start back on the eating right kick.

Then yesterday happened. I was in the yearly "kick-off" meeting for my office when I realized that I had lost all perspective on my job. To make a long story short, it was one of those ah-ha moments where I realized something I felt like should have been obvious before - I don't belong here. I didn't walk away from this episode feeling defeated, or disgusting, or like my self-esteem had been dealt another blow. Instead I walked away thinking, this isn't my place, it's time to continue to do the work of finding a place where I can feel at home. I wanted that realization to feel light, but it was heavy. That work is hard, and at the risk of sounding like a spoiled child, I'm tired of it.

It was in this moment, and the rest of the afternoon, that I was reminded of one of the lines of liturgy from the Ash Wednesday service at HFASS. I don't remember the words exactly but it was something like "For the strength to not fill the Lenten space with something else, Lord give me strength". In a normal day, I would have found chocolate, soothing chocolate, to help me through the afternoon. The way I saw it, I had two choices, and I thought about them as I wandered through two drug stores. I could share in Jesus' suffering and lean on the Spirit to calm me, or I could find something salty and hope it soothed like chocolate.

In that moment I chose a can of mixed nuts. I ate, and I ate, and I ate a few more. It soothed nothing. The lovely thing about God though, is that it didn't matter that I chose the nuts first. It mattered only that I still saw that I had achieved nothing, and realized it. She was still willing to take my hurt and soothe. I realize now that in those drug stores I didn't actually have two choices. I had one, and I could choose it now, or choose to delay it by eating nuts.

Here's to leaving the nuts next time around.