Tonight is our Ash Wednesday service. 6pm at The Chapel. We will keep the service at 60 minutes or less. If you are free, I hope you will join us for this kick of the season of Lent. A season of prayer and fasting, of refinement and reflection, and of journeying with Jesus to the cross. The service will be similar to a Sunday morning worship service. Songs, scripture, teaching and we will end with a time receiving ashes on your hand or on your forehead if you so choose.
Right after we sort out the candy, take down the cobwebs and spooky decorations, and toss the rotting pumpkin from our front porch, Sarah is ready to decorate for Christmas and start drinking Peppermint Mochas.
I, on the other hand, am a traditionalist. I need to wait another four weeks or so, watch Santa glide past Macy’s on a Thursday morning, and eat an unhealthy amount of carbs before I’m ready to prepare my heart and mind for Christmas.
We can’t wait to celebrate and remember Jesus stepping into creation. We jump at the opportunity to look toward the little town of Bethlehem. We love the traditions of counting down the days and indulging in the treats of the season.
But Easter feels different.
I bet that almost all of us have, at some point, stood on the beach at the shoreline and watched the water push in and out. As the tide rolls back and forth, sometimes it goes higher on to the dry sand and other times it barely seems to push in at all. Other times, it pulls out deep into the water exposing new mysteries on the gulf floor. No one can deny this ebb and flow. As well, rarely does anyone think when it pushes in, it will never end or when it pulls out the water is receding forever. We have seen the ebb and flow and we enjoy the ancient back and forth.
Life is a lot like this same ebb and flow. In different seasons it feels busy and chaotic and in other seasons it feels quiet and still. Rarely does anyone think this season will stay forever and honestly we all tend to look forward to the change in pace.
We are about to approach a change of pace here at The Chapel. Between Spring Break, the season of Lent, and other great things happening around here, there are lots of details you need to know. Please read below about the upcoming ebb and flow at The Chapel.
I don’t really remember learning how to ride a bike. I have vague memories of being in front of our house on our dead-end street, trying short distances with no training wheels… and then, suddenly, I could do it.
Years later, at Christmas with Sarah’s family, her brother Josh had bought a kid’s bike for our nephew and was removing the pedals. I didn’t understand why, but apparently, there was a growing idea that if we teach kids to ride a bike without focusing on pedaling, they will find their balance naturally as they coast. Then you add the pedals back on, and suddenly they can ride.
Years later again, when we had kids, we lived in Dallas on very busy streets. Our kids got bikes for Christmas, but we never felt good about trying to teach them to ride without training wheels because everywhere we went… there were so many cars and people.
A few years ago we went to Italy and my kids, who already loved pasta, became even more infatuated with it. Most of us eat the store bought kind…but once you have real, homemade fresh pasta…it’s really hard to go back. So a few months back, they wanted to make some homemade pasta. We didn’t have a proper roller, but we made it work anyway. Then for Christmas we got a pasta maker and my kids have been working on creating unbelievable homemade pasta.
Making homemade pasta isn’t incredibly hard, it just takes a bit of time and effort.
I once was congratulating a friend for getting their PHD and they said all it is, is having Patience, Humility, and Discipline.
I’m sure it’s more than that…and I don’t think that’s what PHD stands for, but I haven’t looked into it.