by: A Covenant Member
In preparing to write this devotional, I was reading the description sent out to everyone who agreed to write one, and trying to reflect on what I could share about my life that appropriately aligns with Lenten themes. Suggestions offered included talking about “the darkness, the reflection, [and] the struggle” that come with Lent, but what really caught my eye was when reflecting on “the lack of resolve” was also proposed. A “lack of resolve”…that’s pretty different than “reflection” and “struggle.” In fact, I think it deals pretty directly with the absence of said endeavors. It’s ironic, yet striking, that all of them can go hand in hand in the journey of faith. But isn’t that just yet another one of the mysterious, compelling, and ever surprising aspects of faith and God?
Anyway, it was absolutely the “lack of resolve” aspect of the description that caught my eye, and consequently it is on this topic that I’ll focus my reflection. My story of struggle has absolutely been ongoing, and not limited to one particular period of my life, but one time that stands out as particularly rife with lack of resolve (more irony!!) was around the turn of the first semester of my freshman year in college.
This is not going to be very surprising to many of you; I had been warned that college was a time in which it was easy to stray from God and the church, it was hard to keep faith in your life, etc., but frankly, I wasn’t too concerned about it. I knew that God was important and that faith would always be an important part of my identity, but I wasn’t really sure how big a part of my identity I wanted it to be, internal or external. So I went to college, made new friends, developed a new life – I didn’t lose myself or my values, but didn’t go to church or really invest in my faith life very much either.
The thing is, the time in life when you’re changing so much in life is the main time in life where you should be concerned with keeping God close, but I really just didn’t. Like I said, I was creating a new life, and I was doing fine. I got good grades, made even better friends, and felt like even though I had my small challenges, life was good. I went to church once, I think.
BUT (did you know?!) usually, when you feel life is under your own control, it does not last for very long. As the semester turned from first to second, I experienced a host of roadblocks. The thing was, they weren’t ever really mine, but rather belonged to my closest friends. Two of my friends were sexually assaulted, one got pregnant, one fell into depression (decided to move across campus and completely disappear), and a few more of my friends were going through a lot of insecurity with sexual identity, which deeply affected our relationships.
For me, it was a clear slap in the face. Or perhaps more appropriately, a slap on the wrist. Something kind of not so direct, but quite close to being direct. Okay, God!!!! Nobody’s life is under his or her own control, at least not all the time. It was this sequence of events that snapped me back into knowing that I need a stronger guide in my life than myself, and even reaching the step to work into the struggle. Naturally, I haven’t been perfectly attentive to investing in God and my faith ever since a lot of my friends experienced life changing struggles. That’s ridiculous, but it was the nudge that I needed to get me out of my freshman wonderland.
I still deal with lack of resolve – I get swept up in the everyday, let other things consume my struggles, and forget to invest in God the way I know I should. But lent as a season is always a reminder that as Christians, we are consciously committed to the reflection and darkness that comes with any journey, and as I (sometimes) remind myself, it is vital to walk the walk. None of us are perfect at it, (especially not me, that’s literally what this story is about), but sometimes God truly has a way of waking you up and reminding you that resolve, in the end, is worth it.
