To be seen and known by those we care about is a human need. How can we truly be loved if we’re not also known? This can be really scary, but when we can share at this intimate, heart-to-heart level, it’s a beautiful, holy, human thing.

I want to be able to trust God when the wind kicks up and the waves get big. I don’t know about you, but I want to stay in the boat and allow Jesus to come to me across the water or in whatever way Jesus wants to get to me.

In all things deep and superficial, momentous and irrelevant, joyous and painful, peaceful and annoying, numinous and mundane, God is there. In all ways and at all times, God is present in my life working within and without for my good.

I weed out the unknown or that which is uncomfortable or difficult, I might throw out something beautiful. On the other hand, even if I do mistakenly weed out something good, God can still help me grow. God can do something with anything in my life. God’s providence is in this garden somewhere; I just can’t always tell how or where until things grow a little.

Yes, we’re suffering. The glory of God has not yet been revealed. That doesn’t mean it won’t be, though; it just hasn’t happened yet.

Pandemic fatigue is a real burden. Each of us may have different struggles and ways of shouldering this burden, but we’re all carrying it. Maybe turning to God can bring some comfort from this burden and restore us.

There are many wise and experienced voices who can speak to fear and all that’s happening in our country right now. Part of my call in all of this is to listen to them, listen deeply and openly and without judgement, listen with love, listen with empathy, listen with humility, knowing that I don’t really know much and don’t face these same experiences. If you are a white person who feels like I do and you feel called to incline your ear for a bit, here are some helpful voices to listen to.

Is what I’m eating the lift-giving bread of Christ, the bread of faith and hope? Am I feasting on contemplation, fruitful prayer, and honest self-examination? Am I eating the bread of the life of the world that puts me in touch with reality and people’s needs?

In moments of grace when we sense God, as well as times of distress when we don’t, God is there. God is there in the quiet stillness of our hearts as well as our cries against injustice. As we accompany each other on the march toward freedom, God accompanies us. As we are Providence to each other, the world changes.

In the spirit of Pentecost, as we celebrate the breath of the Spirit moving over people, we must do something to do better. Some of us can’t even breathe.

It looks like Christ ascended and left them orphaned, but in that space that seems like a void, the people are becoming the Body of Christ, and the Holy Spirit will unmake and remake the community in ways they can’t imagine. It’s a liminal space for the community; everything is falling apart and being reformed.

If hope is a gift and not a feeling, something that comes from God and not from my own strength, I can trust that hope is in me even if I don’t feel it. I might cover it with other flavors, like discouragement, fear, worry, or self-reliance, but it doesn’t matter. Hope is still there, permeated all through me.

Maybe prayer is what enables me to still be in the dwelling place of my house right now. Maybe it’s what helps me to be still in the dwelling place deep within my heart, too.

We can’t hack the kingdom of God. We have to be ourselves and allow God to transform us along the way. You do you. God will love each of us and invite us to be more.

It’s easy to be slow of heart now, and yet, there are moments when my heart burns within me. God is present here. I hope I can be like the disciples on the road to Emmaus – honest, present, perceptive, and responsive to the presence of Christ.

God always wants to be close to me, and doubt can be an opening for God to come closer and show me who God is. Profound, deep, gut-wrenching doubt can feel like a locked door, but as we’ve seen, a locked door is no match for the risen Christ. Sometimes my doubt is so great that God is going to have to go ahead and grace me with a whole new experience. So, that’s what God does.

This year Christ will have to meet me where I am – in a locked room with a little bit of fear and a lot of mourning. And Christ always does that, always meets people where they are. This Easter I unite myself with the loved ones of Jesus on the first Easter, and I trust that I will receive what they did: the joy, hope, peace, and presence of Christ risen in our midst.

Maybe it’s fitting that the well-choreographed grandeur of these days just got messy and chaotic. Our suffering is not a scripted Passion Play but an unfolding bit by bit of uncertainty, growth, helplessness, and trust. Maybe this year more than ever before we’ll be able to bring the Passion events to heart and see how they unfold in our own lives.

After the health crisis has subsided, we might, like Lazarus, come stumbling, bound and bleary-eyed, out of the tomb of our seclusion. We may not know what to make of the new life that emerges, but how we respond is up to us.

God always shelters in place. God goes out to the far reaches of the universe, but God also dwells within each of our hearts. As we shelter in place, we can look within ourselves and see how God is doing the same thing – sheltering in the place within us.