#BISsisterhood // Sacrifice

This Lent, as always, has a mind of its own.  I didn't make any set plans, to be honest, because of where I am right now in the season of my life . . . an autumn season, a fading time, a time of rest and reflection.  I've been ill all my life, but didn't know it, because it was my normal.  Now, however, it's become impossible to ignore.

I'm forced to be still, to let go, and to readjust my expectations.  To sacrifice, even.  To put those dreams and wishes--maybe for a time, maybe forever--on the altar, with the fruits of me-ness that I've held onto too long and that have caused me untoward stress when I just can't.

It's appropriate that sacrifice is being imposed, rather than chosen.  That's the thing about Lent.  It comes whether you're ready for it or not.  Change and grace are swift but irresistible, like a tsunami.  And I'm sort of grateful.  Because, in my human weakness, I might not otherwise sacrifice those wishes.

A Twitch upon the Thread

Haley asked Kathryn and me to help moderate the Carrots Classic Book Club discussion on the first part of Brideshead Revisited, so of course I agreed!  There is an iconic scene in the story where the main characters are reading a Father Brown mystery aloud, and this is the line the narrator chooses to show us.  Years later, one of the characters remembers the quote and puts it into the context of the entire story, into all our stories:

God's grace is invisible, intangible, and thin, but long and strong enough to stay with us, wherever we may wander.  At any moment, when we least expect it, He may twitch the thread and bring us flying back to Him.