When Lent Calls You to Give up Your “Cape” Rather than Chocolate and Caffeine.

This Lent I have eaten far too much chocolate, drank way too much caffeine, and scrolled aimlessly and endlessly through social media while trying to stay awake at this hospital bedside or at home in the night when no one sleeps

I have not fasted with intention (although I have eaten far less than I should have), I have not prayed long and deep prayers (although I have cried out in simple words or with no words to the One I know hears me at all times), I have not worked my way through several books of the Bible or a “special” devotional (although I have several verses written out on cue cards that are worn and wrinkled from my tight grip and dotted and blurred with my tears)

This Lent, I have given up my “cape”.

You know, that one that screams “superwoman” every time you put it on

It hasn’t happened all at once, I have had to work into it – Just like the little nibble you sneak late at night of the chocolate, you said you wouldn’t have for the 40 days of Lent or the two sips of coffee that morning you really needed it, although you gave up caffeine as well.

I have slipped, picked up my cape and wrapped it around my shoulders to get through a particularly difficult moment – or night or an entire day – but then I slipped it back off.

That cape signifies the need for perfection – Jesus doesn’t call us to that – to that perfection – there is no more reward to the one who eats not a bit of chocolate or a sip of caffeine than to the one who works at it and slips and falls and gets up and tries again.

Jesus calls us to relationship and love and obedience- to pick up our cross and follow Him – even if that means – especially if that means- setting it down from time to time and then choosing to pick it up again

I have given up saying I am ok when I am not

I have given up saying “This too shall pass” or “It will all come out in the wash” – because although that is the hope that I hold on to day after day- the words diminish the reality of what I am experiencing in this moment

I have given up saying no to offers of help

I have asked family to send food

I have cried alone, with friends and in the aisle of the supermarket

I have given up tip-toeing around with my words to keep the peace – a peace that doesn’t actually exist when you need to advocate

I have given up suppressing the truth to soften the blow, while carrying the brunt of it all on my own

I have been still in my pj’s when the Nurse or home care came to the house to help with my husband or my friends dropped by

I have left dishes in the sink and skipped the sweeping even though the dust bunnies (or cat hair bunnies) were planning a mutiny

I have eaten chocolate for breakfast and had coffee at midnight

I have ordered food to be delivered when there has been food in the fridge I could have prepared

I have slept on the couch in the middle of the afternoon, rather than doing work that needed to be done

I have told the guys in the booth at the hospital parking lot how wonderful their consistent greetings and smiles have been and told the screeners at the hospital entrance I appreciate them – I have asked the staff how they are doing and told complete strangers in the elevator I like the colour of their hair or their cool shoes.

I have been

Real

Truthful

Vulnerable

Hurt

Exhausted

Unheard

And heard

One year at graduation my students gifted me with a handmade “cape” – my “superwoman cape”.  On the back were two things I used to say to them all the time – “it’s in you” and “you’ve got this”.  It was an inside joke.  When I forgot something during class or didn’t “serve” them to my usual standard and they questioned it, I would laugh and say, “I left my cape at home today.”  On that graduation day they acknowledged my efforts to teach and mentor in excellence and offered back to me the words of encouragement that I had offered to them.

But this year, I set down my “cape”, not this physical one that hangs in a place of honour in my home, but rather the “cape” mindsets and expectations that no longer serve me.

Jesus did not call me to be a superhero.  Self-sufficient and saving the world.  He called me to love the world the way He loves the world so they can see Him in me – the One that does the saving.

Today is Good Friday.  The Disciples went through the darkness of Good Friday and Saturday not knowing the ending.  But we know that no matter how dark this day looks, it may be Friday, but Sunday is coming!

He is risen! He is risen indeed!