Writings of a Beholder 🌿 3.29.24

What Holy Week is Teaching Me

Holy Week is nearly behind us, but the cross remains in front of us, always.

Today is a somber, sad day known to many in the Christian faith as Good Friday. It’s the day that Jesus was convicted for crimes that He did not commit and hung on a cross to pay the price. The price being our sin, the cost being His sinless life.

It’s not a day to feel ashamed of our sin but rather to be filled with awe and deep gratitude at just how much God loves us to sacrifice His Son so that we may be reconciled to Him — blameless and free — for all eternity. Jesus didn’t die to wave it around in our faces, holding it above our heads, so that we might obey Him better. He died so that we may freely and joyfully come to Him. So while today is sad, it’s also an invitation to draw closer to the One Who gave everything to be close to us.

Holy Week is a practice of holding the tension of life and death, the sorrow of sin and brokenness, and the joy of forgiveness and resurrection. As I ventured through it myself, I felt invited by the Spirit to enter into, or rather return to, a regular practice of silence.

Not only did my soul desperately need the quiet rest in my Savior’s presence, but it seemed fitting for the kind of week I was entering. A week full of so much emotion as I attempted to walk it with Jesus, to walk it how He might’ve walked it through Scripture.

In saying yes to this invitation, I found my world slowed down a bit. The silence made space for the Spirit to speak as I held out empty hands and practiced listening. He tended to my soul in ways that are nearly impossible when I’m distracted and hurried, which seems to be my normal lately.

One of my favorite quotes related to the practice of silence and stillness comes from Mother Teresa:

“We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. See how nature — trees, flowers, grass — grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence... We need silence to be able to touch souls.”

In cultivating a rhythm of silence this week, my soul found its center, and I was more open and available to journey with Jesus through this Holy Week. I found myself more open to His promptings, awake to His presence amidst the mundane, and tender toward those within my reach.

It made me think about how Jesus spent a lot of time touching the souls and bodies of the people around Him — healing them, making them clean, and always pointing them to God — and how His first priority was always time with His Father.

“Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed.” (Mark 1:35, NIV)

“But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.” (Luke 5:16, NIV)

Always, He found His center, strength, and rest from spending time in the presence of His Father. Silence and solitude were a close friend of Jesus because He understood that to care for others — to go to the cross and die — He would first need to care for His soul by making time with His Father His number one priority.

And Jesus Himself tells His disciples in John 15:5 that unless we, too, stay connected to our Life Source, we can’t function the way we were created to.

^“I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.” (ESV)

Apart from Jesus, my hurried, harried, soul grows dry and brittle — prone to weariness and burnout. Apart from abiding in intimate relationship with Jesus, I wither and grow faint, unable to tend faithfully to those tasks and people that He is calling me to tend to.

This Holy Week has felt like a re-aligning of my soul as this practice of silence, at first uncomfortable against my hurried pace, has been a coming Home to Love — to true rest, to the gentle voice of God, and to a peace that surpasses all understanding.

So on this Good Friday, I sit at His feet and grieve the heaviness of this day, honoring Him as He so deeply honored me in giving up His life so that I might walk free. But I also hold in my heart a profound gratitude for a God that would not just die for me but live a very human life showing me that the Father’s deepest desire is to be in close, abiding relationship with me.

He didn’t just die to pay sin’s penalty — He died an undeserving death so that He might know me intimately. Forever.

So that He might know you intimately. Forever.

Holy Week is teaching me that walking in the Spirit of God sometimes means returning to that which brings our souls closer to Jesus and moving further away from what distracts us from Him. It’s teaching me that silence isn’t just for monks, but for everyday contemplatives who struggle to find balance and rest in a loud world and who desperately seek to find God.

Holy Week — this Good Friday — is revealing that God is with me, I need only pause, breathe, and look around.

With you on the journey,

Celia

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Life Lately

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A Breath Prayer for Your Weekend

Inhale: May Your unfailing Love.

Exhale: Come to me, Lord.

(adapted from Psalm 119:41, NIV)

*If you’d like to learn more about the practice of breath prayer, download this complete digital guide to practicing breath prayer.

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Resources & Good Things to Pick Up

My mom is an ovarian cancer survivor who decided to create an encouraging planner for those walking through their cancer journey. It would also be a life-giving tool for caregivers and loved ones walking beside their cancer warrior. The ‘For Such a Time as This’ planner is officially available for purchase now here: Quiet Hope Co.

My Etsy shop, The Beholding Co., offers contemplative resources to help you slow down, seek still moments, and behold God’s presence with you in the everyday. Purchase some breath prayer cards, a Lectio Divina bookmark, and more.

Grab a copy of my Bible study, You Are Beloved: a 21-day study on how to root your identity in the love of God, over on Amazon. If you’d like a free 3-day sample of the study, reply to this email and I’ll send it right over!

My friend and licensed spiritual director, Kari Bartkus, offers an 8-week journaling program for those who want to process their grief and trauma with God within the safety of blank journal pages. I’ve completed the program myself and can say confidently that it was incredibly impactful and healing: Journal Gently

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An Invitation to Pause & Reflect

A regular practice of reflection helps us recognize what’s going on beneath the surface of our souls so we can name it in the Lord’s presence. Because as we learn to name what we feel, what we need, and what we long for, we’re also learning to discern the Spirit’s sweet, gentle voice within our hearts and lives.

Take a few moments today or this weekend to journal or contemplate with the Holy Spirit the following question(s) or prompt(s):

What do you sense God inviting you into as Easter approaches?

What has Holy Week been teaching you?

Where might you carve out more space in your days to let Jesus tend to your soul? What might that look like for you?