As I write this, I am experiencing one of life's transitions: My son is leaving home to go off to war and immediate family members are moving back home. I am sitting in the middle watching all that is happening, flooded with my memories of how it used to be and filled with fearful anticipation of how it might be in the future.
My son is going and leaving me behind and soon family will be moving home I don't really even know anymore and they don't know me. I realized tonight how this all pertains to lent. There are three important words associated with Lent -- Transfiguration, transition, and transformation.
The transfigured Jesus stands in the gap between our human, time-bound reality and God’s eternal presence holding all things in being. He gives us a glimpse of the mystery and then gently leads us down the mountainside into the precarious transition from the NOW to the NOT YET.
But it is in this gap between the mountaintop of vision and the valley of hard work that Jesus comes alongside us in companionship. It is in the gap between the unknown possibility that still lies beyond us and the familiar we once cherished that we are stretched. It is in the season between the ripening and the letting go that the real harvest happens.
What happened to Jesus and his disciples on the mountain of transfiguration happens to us during life's transitions, even if in less dramatic ways. Gradually, though often not without pain, each of us grows into the transformation to which we are being called.
It is not easy to not despair in times of change or growth but we are all aware that despair is not of God it is evil and it always makes life more difficult and results needed longer to obtain.We have to trust God in these times. If we do we might just discover that the Lord as been there with us during our transitions, especially when we are in pain and have not looked for Him to guide and comfort us.
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