Values are so easy when you’re talking about them

I love people

I believe in people

I know that we are all touched all over with the fingerprints of the Creator….

But in the heat of the moment,

when I am met with defiance in the classroom

or unhelpful people in less than ideal systems,

then I find my ideals are imaginings and words, they are wood, hay and stubble in a furnace.

Show me your faith without deeds I read, and I smart from the sting of their truth.

Because actually my deeds, my responses, my demanding…. that’s all the real me on show right there.

When the rubber hits the road and things are hard and fast and noisy that’s when I forget the wonder of my perfect ideals and I come down to the heat of rubber vs tarmac and it’s hot and smelly and painful.

When the centre is only words then it doesn’t hold fast in the storm.

I am broken and breaking. I am failing and failed. I am loved and beloved.

and therein lies the contradiction and wonder of the cross – an imperfect me exchanging garbage for treasure.

I didn’t earn the treasure.

I will never earn the treasure and, even after I have left with the treasure, I find bits of the garbage stuck to the bottom of my shoe, still lingering inside my pockets, still hidden in my heart.

I need the cross because I need a daily exchange. I need a new chance today. I need forgiveness for yesterday. I need grace for tomorrow.

I need Lent everyday because I need a daily infusion of grace, of hope, of forgiveness.

Today my Lent is recognising the junk, acknowledging a need for grace, and a daily gratefulness to Jesus who dealt with it all, who carried its shame, my shame.

Today I know Jesus is sufficient. He is enough for me.

I fall at His wonderful, nail scarred feet and let my tears of failure be an anointing of thanksgiving.