Lent 2 - Risky balancing act

Week two lent reflections based on this download. And the image is this one. 

It looks like a person walking on a tightrope though as you look closer at the image you see a person ready to provide safety.

Is your life like walking on a tightrope? Often it feels like my life is balanced and then something else gets thrown at me and it knocks me, it's then when balancing everything is that much harder. There has been a lot of death around at the moment, or friends dealing with terminal diagnoses. Its the days you hear that sort of news you hope you are on a pavement not a tightrope to start with.

I have a busy life. I have a full time job, a long distance relationship,  my voluntary work with MWiB and my local preaching studies. I had a weekend off this weekend and went to boyfriend's house with 4 other friends for a weekend of fun, games, food, gender stereotypes and general Methodist geekery. Was really nice to relax, and spend time with friends, and boyfriend after he'd had a particularly rough week. Sunday morning we went to church and the minister said instead of a sermon the service would be made up of songs, readings, meditations from the biblical characters' perspectives and communion. This gave me a chance to pick up my own reflections throughout the service. One story told was that of Mary and Martha. The line that struck me was in Mary's meditation which pondered on why Martha had to keep so busy and whether her busyness hid an emptiness? Are we so busy balancing everything,  keeping busy that we are stuck on our tightrope.

What is lent about? Do we give vices up to make ourselves feel righteous? But does it bring us closer to God?

One song we sang had the line
"Never let my heart grow cold." That is my prayer, that I'm never too busy trying to balance my life one step at a time to know that God has his arms ready to catch me.

The words accompanying this image, called I Am With You Always, on the McCrimmon website are: 

“Turn to Me, your Saviour. 

Put your trust in Me and in the power of My Spirit. 

Put Me first in your life, no matter what the cost. 

Open your heart to Me, in reverence and humility.”

Would losing control and falling off the tightrope into God's arms be that bad? Sometimes we need to totally abandon ourselves to God, life will still be there when we get back on the path, it just may look very different, a new normal.

One of the other stories shared in the morning's worship was that of the transfiguration. The characters both talked of their joy at the time and not wanting to return to normality after such an awe inspiring experience.
Sometimes we have an amazing experience and returning to normality is really difficult. Strong spiritual experiences are great, but if we see our general lives as time balancing on our own and not relying on God,  even though his arms are ready to catch us.

We often split our lives,  we separate our online and offline lives.  My Boyfriend tells me off when I talk about my job as my real life and my voluntary things as another part of life. There is a whole blog post on what makes up life and why our job is how we describe ourselves, but this is not that.

I don't know if this is what the writer or artist was aiming for but I think I'd prefer to fail and be in God's arms rather than struggle on alone. And be in God's arms in all that I do, and all the parts of my life.

To close, the prayer from the resource.

Saving God, you watch over me tenderly, ready to catch me when I fall. As I try to maintain balance in my life, help me to trust you. As I walk the narrow path of faithful commitment, help me to keep my eyes fixed on you. Amen