Red

Confession: You already know this about me–sometimes I write about caterpillars when I can’t write about cataclysm.

My grandfather is dying today (my only grandpa, pillar around which my earliest memories twine), and my sister is in the ER for the third time in a week (my only sister, oh my sister). I hold this at bay with words about little things, and pray that when I need to write the big ones, grace will come. Remember me and the people I love to Jesus today.

*****

Confession: I didn’t know how to do it.

Visiting a new church, I sat with other mothers chatting in the nursery, my two-year-old playing around my knees. The door opened. A woman and a man entered, the first holding a silver plate, the second a silver chalice. “Would the mommies like communion?” They turned first to the regulars, then looked to me.

Gladly I reached for His grace.

“The body of Christ, broken for you,” said the woman softly, and I took a piece of wafer from the bits on the plate.

It was a large piece. I put it in my mouth and began to chew the hard, dry cracker, thinking of Jesus.

I looked up and saw one of my new friends receiving the juice—dipping her cracker into the cup, then putting it in her mouth. Oh no. No!

The man with the chalice turned to me. “The blood of Christ, shed for you,” he said.

Red stained my cheeks, red stained the cup. Mutely, I shook my head. Mumbled around my crumbling cracker. I already put it in my mouth. Hand to my face, eyes on the floor, I stood there shaking my head at the blood of Christ, as though I wanted no part of Him.

But my mouth hurt from wanting Him, from the cool juice of washing that did not touch my lips, until at last in the evening He came to me and I cried against His shoulder. He took the sting into the wounds that held the sin of the world, carried it in the wounds that filled the cup.

*****

What can Jesus carry for you?

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Mom Coblentz
11 years ago

LOTS!! Everything actually… today… but I can’t put words to any of it! I can only sit here and weep.

Jim Yutzy
11 years ago
Reply to  Mom Coblentz

Love you little sis!!

11 years ago

It will be alright, Sis! I’m weary and hurting but not overcome. I love you lots!

Dorothy M
11 years ago

My heart goes out to all of you. May you rest in Christ.

11 years ago

Oh my. Your sister. Your grandpa.
May He lift and sustain you now in the overwhelming.

11 years ago

Hugs. I love you and Jeanie. You are never far from my heart.

11 years ago

Shari, Jean, Barb-

You dear ladies!!!! I wish that I could bear at least a portion of the pain that each of you are experiencing today. I love you and am lifting you to the Father. {Hugs}

Christy
11 years ago

Shari, the way you take me from laughing to crying is the best exercise for my heart today. I’m sorry for laughing (kind of), but it has been me the last few months–learning a new way of doing communion and doing it wrong. (I like it…though) Then, “Shaking my head no as if I wanted no part in His blood…”

Then the last paragraph–the dryness of the crumby parts of life… Longing for Jesus. I needed to remember that He is strong enough, loving enough, patient enough. Most of all I needed the reminder to stop shrinking at the crumbling dryness and think, “What is it exactly that I need Him to carry for me?” and take it to Him.

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