FMF: Sing

I didn't think I had anything to say about this week's prompt word, but suddenly the first sentence came to me and then I found that I couldn't stop writing. I love my Five Minute Friday community, but on those weeks when the inspiration does actually come, five minutes just isn't enough to convey everything that is in my heart. So without further ado, this week's prompt word:

 

SING

What do you do when you can't sing?
What do you do when your heart can't hear the song anymore?
What do you do when the song that once called you now hurts you with its words?
What do you do when your voice leaves you and the notes are replaced with tears?

The good Christian and Catholic answer would be that you keep singing.

But it's not that easy. It's just not.

It's not that easy when every time your eyes take in the words on the music sheet or hymnal and you feel a knot in your stomach, a lump forming in your throat, a quivering tremble in your normally steady voice, or a white hot anger spreading through your chest. Honestly, sometimes when your the song becomes too painful to sing, what you do is stop singing.

I know. I know. That's not what you're supposed to do. But it happens.

Can I tell you something? Despite whatever message shame and guilt are telling you, sometimes it's 100% okay to stop singing. God understands. He understands the pain and suffering we are enduring and that sometimes forcing ourselves to sing just exacerbates that pain. He's felt the same pain you are feeling -- whatever that may be. He gets it in a way that no one else can or ever will. It's because not only did He feel that ache in your heart when He was put to death for the sins of mankind, but He feels it now. He is with you in your pain. More to the point, when we are suffering, we are closest to His Sacred Heart.

So what do you do when you can't offer a song of praise or worship or even thanksgiving to God? What on earth do you do?

You offer up your sorrows instead. Offer every tear, every heartache, every moment of screaming and shaking anger, and every little bit of you that hurts. Offer that up to Him. You may be asking the question, "well, how do I do that?" The easiest thing to do is to make a conscious decision that whenever you feel all the things that steal your voice, that you will say to Him, "Jesus, I offer these to You." It doesn't have to be any kind of flowery or fancy sounding prayer. Just a humble offering in the midst of pain. Yes, that sounds easy and yes, it's hard to do. It can be especially hard to do if you are angry with Him.

So if you're angry at Him, what then? If that is what you are feeling and you can't bring yourself to offer anything to Him, just offer Him the promise that you won't run away. You can rage. You can rail. You can scream. You can tell Him exactly how you feel and use all the swear words in your vocabulary. All of the above are acceptable because He can take it. Just offer Him the promise that no matter how angry you get, you will keep coming back to Him. That means that you'll continue to do at least the bare bones basics of faith so as not to let the relationship die. Things might be distant for a while and you might be tempted to turn away, but keep turning back to Him. Sing Him the song of your promise to be obedient and faithful even amidst your anger.

I know that if you are hurting -- no matter the reason -- that you may be screaming at your computer screen right now and telling me in no uncertain terms that I'm bonkers or that I don't get it. You may be crying as you read this because you think that there's no way that you'll ever sing again. You may be in such great pain that you are praying that He will mercifully take you from this life. You may have reached a point where you are no longer concerned with singing any song because you are thinking of ending your life yourself. 

I know absolutely all of these pains. I know the anger, the rage, the heartbreak, the deep ache of wanting the pain to stop, the praying that God would take my life, the thoughts of suicide so dark that I couldn't see my way into the next hour, much less tomorrow. I know all of these things so well, my friend. I get it on a deep level.

Actually, I get it right now. I've had a week when the heavy dark cloud has been hanging over me and I just couldn't shake it. This evening, in fact, I felt so overwhelmed by it that I lost my ability to care that I was in the floor, shaking with sobs, and my eldest daughter was watching it all. It was horrible. It's still not so great. My classically trained soprano voice hasn't sung at all this week.

To be honest, I've not regularly sung His praises in the way that I normally love to do, for almost three years. So what have I done? I've continued in obedience and done the bare bones. I've gone to Mass each week and on holy days. I've prayed the blessing over meals. I've prayed bedtime prayers with my children and husband. I've wept so many tears that they would likely fill a rather large vat by this point and many of them as I've been on my knees before Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. I've screamed at Him (yes, with profanities on occasion) and told Him how angry I am and that I felt abandoned by Him when I needed Him most. I have, in my own disjointed and imperfect way, tried to continue on in faith and obedience even when I didn't feel anything and even when I didn't want to anymore.

My efforts to that end haven't been fruitless, but I have needed an abundance of help from my spiritual director, Fr. B. and the graces of the sacraments of Reconciliation (confession), Anointing of the Sick, and the Eucharist. Those meetings with Fr. B and the graces I've received through frequent reception of the sacraments have been like a healing balm that works slowly, but steadily. I can't say that my song has returned in full, but I am finding moments when the words and music fill me up with more than pain. I still don't sing as much as I once did, but my voice is returning in fits and starts.

So if you can't sing and it hurts too much, know that you are not alone. He is with you even in your pain and anger and silence. May Christ who knows your pain and hears your silent anguished song abide with you until you can sing again.

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If you find yourself at that place where you are thinking of suicide, please reach out to someone. If you need it, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255) or if you'd rather text to someone, text the word HOME to 741741 and the Crisis Text line will text you back.

FMF: Empty

It's been a while since I've written in this blog in part because we've had a lot going on within our family life of late. I really want to get back into the habit of writing on a regular basis, so with that in mind, here's my contribution to this week's linkup at the Five Minute Friday community. This week's word prompt is EMPTY. Given that we've just been through Holy Week, I've been thinking and meditating on Christ's last week on earth and more particularly, on His death and resurrection. This prompt definitely pointed toward all these meditations for me, so that was the inspiration for this. I hope you find something in it to edify and encourage you. Happy Easter!

EMPTY

I have heard quite a few people ask the question of Catholics, “why do you keep Jesus nailed to the cross?” It's a good question. Most non-Catholic Christian churches do not have a cross with Jesus nailed to it. Their crosses are empty. Having grown up Baptist, I was always told that the reason the cross was empty was because He had overcome death. So if the empty cross is a symbol for Jesus having overcome death, then why do Catholics display and wear a crucifix?

There are a number of reasons for this, but the biggest of these is that having Jesus on the cross in front of our eyes makes it so that every time we see it, we are reminded of His great love for us – that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. You see, it is death that we see when we look at a crucifix. It is an agonising, brutal, vicious, torturous death. It is also a beautiful death. That may sound strange, but think of it this way: not only did His death bring about redemption and the possibility of salvation for all of mankind, but He bore that death with the full knowledge that there would be those who would reject His love. When Catholics look at a crucifix, we are moved both by the agony of it and the beauty of it, because we see Him at His most loving.

One of the other things that a crucifix encourages us to do every time we look at it is to persevere as we carry our own crosses. It also encourages us that He is with us in that journey because He has been there and He knows the pain of carrying a cross. He knows it more perfectly and more fully than we will ever begin to fathom. So when we gaze upon the crucified form of Jesus on a cross, we can draw great strength from being reminded that He is with us, helping us to carry the crosses of life.

Finally, there is one Truth that we are reminded of every time we gaze upon a crucifix and that is this: there is no way to heaven but through the cross. To reach heaven, we must go through the cross. We can't go around it. We can't avoid it. We can't ignore it and pretend that it isn't there or that we don't need it. We need to embrace the crucified Christ because His love for us in that moment is what enables us to reach heaven.   

Without the crucifixion, there can be no resurrection and the resurrection – the empty tomb, not the empty cross – is the ultimate symbol of victory over death. That empty tomb is a promise that one day our own tombs will be empty because we will be raised up, our bodies made perfect because of Christ's death and resurrection, and we will be with Him for eternity, enjoying the beatific vision of God the Father.

So we keep Jesus on the cross – not because we are consumed with His death – but rather because seeing Him there is an unavoidable and constant reminder of just how much we are worth to God. When the world tells you that you are worthless or you feel like God doesn't love you or doesn't care about you, I encourage you to go look at a crucifix and meditate on what you see before you.

That, my friends, is the message of the crucifix. The crucifix in all its brutality with Jesus hanging upon the cross is a message of great love and of great hope. We know when we see it that this isn't the end of the story and so the crucifix points us toward the empty tomb and the resurrection. It gives us hope that our own crosses are not the end of our stories. It gives us hope that with His help, we can persevere to the end, having run the race to its completion and having obtained the prize of eternal life.