Hello, Friends!
    So I bought this really nice, fabric-bound journal, with the express purpose of overcoming my usual perfectionistic writer’s block that keeps me from journaling this Lenten season.
    Now, weeks into the season, a paltry few pages have anything on them—this pretty new book joins the ranks of diaries and journals aplenty from the past, mostly bare of any record of my life journey.
     In keeping with my reflections in worship and in this column for the past two weeks, I’m committed to not beating up on myself for past shortcomings, or getting bogged down in “should’a—could’a—would’a”—a surefire way to dampen the spirit, and sap the will to grow.
     I woke up really missing my mother again this morning, needing to hear her voice, seek her counsel, receive her never-failing encouragement.   And what do you know—when I got to my office and started (again) to sort through books and “get it together,” there, on top of a box from bookshelves in Jackson, was this journal.
     On the cover, my favorite aphorism, beloved by those of us in twelve-step recovery programs—the Serenity Prayer:
      God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
That would have been blessing enough, but inside I found an even sweeter gift:  
    my mom’s handwriting, from 1994, when friends had given her the journal at the time of my dad’s heart surgery.   For several days she faithfully chronicled every significant moment of that trying, scary time, including visits by dear ones, doctor’s reports, and every aspect of Dad’s process of recovery, until he left the hospital.
    Then nothing—several blank pages—until there was my dad’s handwriting, similarly recording Mom’s journey through gall bladder surgery a few months later.
    The rest of the journal is blank—with many pages left unfilled.   Somehow I found that blankness just as comforting as the sweet words on the pages filled with my parent’s concern for each others’ well-being.
      Do those blank pages indicate a lack of caring, an inattentiveness to the days of their life together?  By no means.   Did they even intend, either one of them, to keep a daily journal of everyday life?   I don’t know, and I don’t need to know.
      What I do know is that my parents cherished each other, deeply and daily, and that they were also very human, and therefore not “perfect,” by any measure.   They lived and loved well together, and their love lives still in me and mine, and our family’s ongoing human journey of loving and learning.
     So I have a new journal today, in which I hope to write daily, something about what my parents taught me—about gratitude, about forgiveness, about love that endures, even beyond the grave.  And on the days I can’t bring myself to write, I can still touch this little book, remember, and be thankful.
       I look forward to journeying (and journaling) with you this Sunday, and all our days to come.

Shalom,
Sarah