A Lenten Return

It is Ash Wednesday. Around this time every year I feel a strong connection to my beginning with the Episcopal Church. It was the ritual of Lent that first drew my heart toward liturgy and engaged my mind in a new way with thoughtful worship and prayer. 

It is this Ash Wednesday that I have read through Psalm 51 with both a heavy heart but with a measure of excitement as the fasting period of Lent makes us set aside at least one thing that is distracting so that we may turn our minds and thoughts back to our purpose, to carve away thick lazy layers of our selves, and to find peace in Christ's leading. 

I have been struggling so much over the past year with what seems like priorities that are upside down. I have blamed it on the deep aching desire to be a mother but I fear it is my own shortcomings. 

If one were to survey my mind and organize according to frequency of thought:

thinking about mothering

Ben and being a wife

taking care of furry children

gardening

wanting to perfect:

cooking 

photography 

decorating

my physical shape

and BELOW that:

giving of my time to repairing the breaches that we are called to do. Sometimes it's so very hard to care about Syria when all I can think of is the most healthy form of oil to use. And this.is.terrifying.

and LASTLY:

work

This is painful to see written out and I hope to regain my inner desire for what has fallen away. 

I'm (we're) also blogging again. 

I would like a place to bring all of the parts of myself together - to write on cooking and planting and what adoption form I can't figure out. and I would like to see all of them reflect He who created me.