A Gift for You This Holy Week

LentTamara Hill MurphyApril 8, 2022holy week, Retrieve Lament 2022, lament

Weekend Daybook: All the Company of Heaven edition

Weekend Daybook, Creators & Cultivators, Best of... lists, Church CalendarTamara Hill MurphyOctober 26, 2019links, The Porters Gate, music, All Saints and Souls, autumn, grief, lament, worship, On Becoming Anglican, david taylor, television, films

Into your hands I commit my spirit: Erin Ware [Retrieve Lament 2019]

I kid you not, there was a time, not long before all of this happened, that I thought that “the worst thing that could happen” would be my car breaking down, because I was very financially vulnerable. Then, almost like a joke, my car was stolen, and I couldn’t replace it. (Spoiler alert: I got through it.) The truth is, for most of my life, losing my mom would have been the worst thing that I could imagine—and then that happened too. I don’t want to think about what my “worst thing” would be now. All I know is, through it all, I have come to realize that there is life after death in more ways than one.

It is finished: Marcie Walker [Retrieve Lament 2019]

When my mother was sentenced to serve 8-25 years in prison on the charge of involuntary manslaughter, we all said, “This is it,” which in our hearts translated to, “So, this is how it all ends.” She was nearly 60 and all of us, her children, were grown but still asking ourselves,”What kind of woman is this? Troubles ride on the wind and land at her feet.”

Woman, behold your son. Son, behold your mother. Drake Dowsett [Retrieve Lament 2019]

In the shalom that God designed for his creation, my mother was to be more like Mary, my father was to be more like Joseph, my life was to be more like Jesus’. I look at this passage and this time see how dimly our dingy triptych stands in comparison to the ideal. I can taste the absence of his kingdom and I am hungry for it with a deep ache that cuts back through the years to my earliest memories.

Weekend Daybook: the welcoming each other edition

Best of... lists, Weekend Daybook, Creators & Cultivators, Peace & Justice, Wholeness & HealingTamara Hill MurphyOctober 13, 2018links, 7 quick takes, justice, finding Tamara, lament, liturgy of life, art of homemaking

Into your hands: Tamara Hill Murphy [Retrieve Lament]

I need resurrection, yes, but I never want to skip the burial because this is where all the old things are laid to rest. Only when they've been completely killed can they be made completely new.

It was during the darkest hour of betrayal, forsaken even by his father and his God, that Jesus said these words, “Father, into Thy hands I commit my spirit.” This act marked a final moment of epiphany, as the hardest hearts watching that day replied: “Surely this was the Son of God.”

It was Jesus’ unwavering allegiance to the one true God that caused him to lay his own soul into the only place worthy of its keeping, his Abba Father’s hands. His willingness to suffer the injustices of all the world made a way for me to lay down my own wounded, abused and betrayed self and entrust my whole self to the Abba of Jesus, “Father, into Thy hands I commit my spirit."

It is finished: Wendy Wall [Retrieve Lament]

In a way, it’s beautiful to be so empty, so broken. There are no more valiant, heroic measures to try to save the marriage. No more prayers and hopes for a miracle. After twenty-five years, it is finished. No more praying through the book, The Power of the Praying Wife. No more begging for the truth and longing to be loved. No more working too hard to find a way to measure up. Always striving for more: more wealth, more power, more recognition, and more love. No more busy running here and there, over-committing to good things that distract and deflect from the best things.

I thirst: Brett Alan Dewing [Retrieve Lament]

It is OK to cry out to Him in my loneliness, in my frustrated sexual being, in my uncertainty, to mourn the life He called me out of, even if I find myself desiring it once more. It is OK to weep for the loss of a broken life. We must, in fact, let go of every “if” or “might have been” to truly follow Him without reservation. Let them float away like balloons, in an array of tears, offerings to Him that set us on the good path. He knows what we gave (give) up, and He can take the tears of pain and anger as we grieve our vinegar thirsts.

Why have you forsaken me?: Amy McLaughlin [Retrieve Lament]

And Father, how did you arrive at the conclusion that the way this would play out would be good for my sister and me? Why has it taken me so long? Why has it taken you so long? I felt as if God let me stand close and beat his chest with the depth of my pain. He did not waiver. He did not stop me. I felt I was to get it all out. And He was there when I settled. I didn’t have an answer. This experience became a sort of answer.

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