Lenten Thoughts

As I continue in my training to become a spiritual director, my heart keeps dreaming of creative ways to offer my education and learnings to more people...


Thus, my time spent with my friend Kristi is continually a picture of the possibilities of combining spiritual reflective practices with silence and beauty for half-day retreats open to anyone. Read more about Kristi and her Reflective Retreats here.


Last weekend, we spent most of our Saturday "alone together" with several others focusing on entering into the suffering and passion of Christ during the week leading up to his death and resurrection.


This station struck me in an extraordinary way that cold, dreary Saturday. The rainy gloominess of the day was strangely fitting for the subject at hand...

I was struck by the moments of intense exhaustion, fatigue, and even overwhelming heaviness of the burden of the cross that Jesus bore on the long walk up to the hill where he would be crucified. The stirrings in my heart touched on the many moments in the last few years of heaviness, sadness, grief and overwhelming brokenness which I have experienced in response to life around me and those dear to me -- the death of loved ones, loss of relationships, illness, and unexplained pain and suffering. Comfort encompassed me as I received the truth of Christ's ability to resonate with the feeling of being so weighed down by the sadness and sinful reality of the world, that even he fell to the ground on his journey to his destination. Even he needed the body of Christ (as seen in the person of Simon) to help him carry the load laid upon him.