EpiscoGrrl
This has been a rough year for me. I’ve managed to keep putting one foot in front of the other through it primarily because I was afraid that if I didn’t, I’d just disappear as though I never existed. Today’s verse (Psalm 43:3-5) in #TheDisciplesWay reminds me that simply enduring is not what God wants for me or for anyone. For months, I’ve sought solace (& honestly, just to stay busy) at church. This psalm calls me to seek joy. I’m not sure how, particularly when we’re heading into Holy Week, which is probably the most stressful time of the year for parish administrators who dabble with A/V. I’m also afraid to even look for joy because it doesn’t seem to last for me. And losing it hurts. And yet…the call persists. To find & experience joy in worship when I am working the service not just attending it. How? I know I’ve carried a lot of luggage into this season. I know I need to put it down. It doesn’t seem not define me. I no longer need it. #Joy calls. I’ve forgotten how to answer.
Apr 8, 2025 at 10:41amWeb
Show threadDaniel JohnsonApr 8, 2025

@Jay You will find joy in suffering, because Christ appears in the midst of suffering.

“God did not come to do away with suffering; he did not even come to explain it. He came to fill it with his presence.”

— Paul Claudel

Show threadEpiscoGrrlApr 8, 2025

@ossobuffo yeah, I’ve heard that.

Maybe it’s time to stop glorifying suffering when it’s used as an excuse to be unkind and a reason to not love.

Show threadDaniel JohnsonApr 8, 2025
@Jay I apologize if I sounded like I was injecting trite cliché into the seriousness of your post. I only speak from experience.
Show threadEpiscoGrrlApr 8, 2025

@ossobuffo no worries. I’m trying to find my way through an emotional thicket. Sorrow (not exactly suffering) has kind of become a uniform I’m comfortable wearing but am being called to take off. I’m trying to figure out how.

(Also, as a side note: I’ve seen that nugget, along with Paul’s chapter on love enduring all things, be misused as reasons to confine people to abusive & toxic situations. I do not believe that is what God intends. Yes, there will be & is sorrow in human life, however, that is not all there is. I need to stop wallowing in it & I’m not the only one.)

Show threadDaniel JohnsonApr 8, 2025

@Jay On a lighter note: My stress levels went way down once I refined my Fedi blockwords list. Here it is in all its glory:

fascists, nazi, fascist, fascism, nazis, nazism, trump, musk, uspol

I am not disinterested in topics touching these keywords, but reading related posts all the time was making me super stressed and unpleasant to be around.

Show threadEpiscoGrrlApr 8, 2025
@ossobuffo it’s tempting. I’m torn between shaking dust from my sandals & loving my enemy (or, perhaps more accurately, “I am loathe to close,” as President Lincoln put it. “We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Thoughassion may have strained it must not break the bonds of our affection. The mystic chords of memory…will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.” Abraham Lincoln’s 1st Inaugural Address, 1861)