We choose to share our incomplete thoughts
as we stand in the Mystery of many things.
April is a mixed bag for us.? Here’s our short history of April—
This year we celebrate 41 years of marriage❤️🔥and 34 years without our son, Paul 😞. Thirty-one years ago, we traveled to Marshall to teach a small band of friends, which later became our beloved Crossroads Church and Ministries 💒. A violent crime committed against our child (and others) resulted in a not guilty verdict😭🤬. In the last two years, we lost both our moms in April 😭. While we celebrate our precious Josiah and niece Jaime’s b-days 🥳 🥳, two of our parents exited on the date of their entrance 🎭. Seriously folks, you just can’t make this stuff up.
At our son Paul’s memorial service, my (Clare) dad eulogized his grandson and made the statement that has never left us, “Rather than asking, “what is the meaning of this?” (long pause, take a breath) he continued, “let’s seek to find the meaning in this. And there is great meaning in this.”
“Everything can be taken from a human but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
Viktor Frankl, MD, PhD
Psychiatrist Viktor Frankl (after surviving Nazi concentration camps) wrote the book “Man’s Search for Meaning.” and developed “logotherapy” (“Logos” is the Greek word for meaning) which involves helping a patient find personal meaning in the trauma of life. Frankl taught that humans are motivated by something called a “will to meaning.”
Finding meaning “in” life can help save your life. Not the flippant “everything happens for a reason” bull, but how is God with me “in” this now, and how can I be in God for the sake of this broken world.
Whether it’s the tragic war on the Ukrainian people, three US congressmen that won’t vote for “lynching to be a hate crime,” or the “slap seen around the world,” this month, we lack the ability to repent, grieve, stand in the mess together, or practice conflict transformation. The sins of the Protestant and Catholic Churches continue to reveal our warped, depraved and meaningless methods. And of course, Hell hath no fury like podcasters, journalists, documentarians, armchair psychologists, and self-appointed social media mockers who can’t find meaning.
So, we invite you to pray and take a breath with us—
Breathing in — In Your justice we long for mercy
Breathing out —In Your mercy, we long for justice
We pray for the ways we’ve wounded our lives and the lives of others.
Breathing in — In Your justice we long for mercy
Breathing out —In Your mercy, we long for justice
We grieve the brokenness of our world. We stand in solidarity with survivors and pray for victims’ rescue from evil, the healing of minds, hearts, and bodies.
Breathing in — In Your justice we long for mercy
Breathing out —In Your mercy, we long for justice
We pray for deliverance from warmongers and false leaders who perpetuate their pain into the life of the world.
Breathing in — In Your justice we long for mercy
Breathing out —In Your mercy, we long for justice
We pray for liars, conspiracy theorists, delusionists, and all who keep us off mission.
Breathing in — In Your justice we long for mercy
Breathing out —In Your mercy, we long for justice
May it be so. Amen
Never have we longed for Jesus’ promise of “a New Heaven and a New Earth” as we do now. Thank God that Easter lands in April almost 80% of the time, and it is the first entire month of Spring, too! This is the month where we’ve learned (and keep learning) to walk slowly, intentionally, celebrating this life and the life to come. We will purposely stay open to meaning, mercy, and justice every chance we get.
So, friends, will you join with us and refuse to live like Hell but be found in the meaning of Christ’s Resurrection on the way to Heaven?
In meaning,
Clare and Scott
Grief, Celebration, and the meaning in our lives.
April 1, 1988 – Paul’s b-day and d-day
April 1 – perpetrator walks
April 3, 1981- Our wedding
April 1991 – Crossroads Church b-day
April 10, 2021- Mom L’s d-day,
April 14, 1989 – Josiah’s b-day
April 14, 2012 – Dads L’s d-day
April 16, 1983 – Jaime’s b-day
April 16, 2020 – Mom P’s d-day
April 17, Easter 2022!