Earlier this year, when I read One Thousand Gifts, I knew that it was going to be the most life-changing, non-Bible book I've ever read. And over the last months, it's continued to echo reminders of grace in my life.
Eucharisteo
I had the kind of week no one can prepare you for and no one ever wants to have. It started with the kind of phone call no one wants to get and sent me to places no one wants to be in.
In the early morning, I read.
Lean into the ugly
Whisper thanks
Give thanks for all things
At all times
Because He is all good.
Finding ways to give thanks in the darkness didn't mean it wasn't the hardest thing I've ever done. It meant I was receiving the grace to do it for another minute, hour, day.
And the grace strung those days together, turning fear into gratitude and desperation into hope.
Until, it was time to face the eucharist on Sunday morning.
The ultimate giving of thanks.
I walked into church and I saw those communion plates shining gold right up in front and my heart went to my stomach. Tears flowed freely and my neighbor wordlessly acquired a box of tissues. I sat in the church at the cross and let the lament happen. Everything I didn't let myself feel all week poured itself right out of my heart. And then I took that bread - the Word of God - on which I survive, the Body of Christ broken for me, and looked around at my family, my church family, doing this together. We took the cup - the Blood of Jesus - poured out for our salvation, our life, and how do you not rejoice?
And that's when I felt it the realest I ever have: eucharisteo joy is not just about giving thanks when things are common or good or great, it's about giving thanks when it's as dark as it can possibly be and we're just hoping for one candle to be lit. It's about believing in a light that will shine in the darkness and not be overcome.
I've found myself wishing I had three hands because then I could play guitar and raise one hand up in lamenting worship and express my honesty and eucharisteo physically as well as with my heart.
I read Hosea this week and it solidified its place as my favorite book. I read it and I see who I am and who I'm not and it stills me.
Therefore, behold, I will allure her and bring her into the wilderness, and I will speak tenderly and to her heart. There I will give her vineyards and make the valley of Achor [troubling] to be for her a door of hope and expectation. And she shall sing there and respond as in the days of her youth and as the time when she came up out of the land of Egypt. Hosea 2:14-15
That just makes me fall deeper in a sea of love. The valley of troubling becomes a door of hope. She will sing.
I drew them with cords of kindness, with bands of love, and I was to them as one who lifts up and eases the yoke over their cheeks, and I bent down to them and gently laid food before them. Hosea 11:4
I knew (recognized, understood, and had regard for) you in the wilderness, in the land of great drought. Hosea 13:5
To be understood when you are confused, to be found when you are lost, to be known when you feel so very small, this is the river of eucharisteo satisfying the aching dryness of a weary soul.
But I think the hardest part of the hard eucharisteo is coming to terms with how selfish I am and how little I think of other people, and then when I do, how hard and foreign it is to put myself last over and over again. I don't know how to do that, and I don't like how it feels and I don't like that I don't like it. I am selfish and foolish and I only want the good and I can't see that God is good at all times.
And so I sit with the body and the Body and the Blood and I weep and I give repent and I give thanks and I lament.
Eucharisteo
Return to your rest, o my soul
For the Lord has dealt bountifully with you.
Psalm 116:7
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