There are some truths that I need to hear again and again, truths that open my heart to Jesus a little more each time I hear them. As we walk through this Holy Week, I’m returning to an experience I wrote about during Holy Week a dozen years ago. My situation is different, but this reminder touches me just as deeply as it did then, so I decided to share it with you again in case you, too, find yourself needing welcome in the midst of the struggles and frustrations of life in this world.

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I wrote last week how this year I couldn’t mourn the cross. Then I found myself in the Maundy Thursday service, reaching for one Kleenex after another. I wasn’t mourning Jesus’ sufferings. Wasn’t even mourning my own sin. I was weeping tears of relief at the invitation to come broken.

I had walked my way there struggling against the frustration of living in this body where every attempt to improve the situation seems to make it worse. More, I was frustrated by my frustration. Here I was on my way to remember my Beloved’s sufferings, his forever vows to me, and I couldn’t get my thoughts off myself.

Between segments of Psalm 31, I half-sobbed the sung words which gave space for my brokenness:

“In my trials, Lord, walk with me;

In my trials, Lord, walk with me;

When my heart is almost breaking,

Lord, I want Jesus to walk with me.”

I wept over the welcome offered, tears of relief over Love that makes space for all of me. Wept, too, at the whispered reassurance that sometimes when we feel like we’re missing the mystery, we’re living it most deeply.

There are days we see clearly and days we hold on through the fog. And the good news of Good Friday is that we’re held just as close on the days we struggle as on the days we celebrate. We live now in the new covenant in Jesus’ blood, the covenant that declares that we don’t have to get it all together in order to come – or stay – with God. For unlike the previous covenants which were all broken because people did not trust the Giver, “this covenant cannot be broken. All the other covenants were between God and human beings, but this covenant is between God and God.” (Darrell Johnson)

That’s how much God desired us: He became human so he could keep our part of the covenant as well as His own.

So go ahead. Stop trying to hold it together and let yourself weep. You are welcome in this space where you don’t have to have it together to be His. Weep when you need to; just don’t weep alone. Weep – and lean hard into this One who does for you what you cannot do for yourself. Weep – and through the tears give thanks. You are so loved!

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Need a little more encouragement during this Holy Week? Here are a couple more posts that you might enjoy:

When You Need to Remember You’re Beloved

The Welcome of Holy Week

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Photo by LeeAnn Cline on Unsplash