Good Friday

I was raised in the Christian tradition, studied it in college, have meticulously deconstructed it in my adult years. I have become one of those Christmas and Easter people, not because my faith only comes to life on these holy holidays but because I see the magic and sacredness in the season of Lent and the season of Advent.
Times of waiting, preparation, getting ready for what was to come. And what was to come was a new thing entirely, an invitation into a world that is so radically different than this one.
This year Easter has new meaning for me.
Because as I stand weeks out from the death of my own child, feeling like I have lost a piece of myself and still reeling from the trauma of everything that took place, I feel like I have a deeper connection with the God I was always told about as a child. The God who allowed the death of the Son of God because Jesus' death was never just about the death of Jesus. The God who allowed a part of Godself to suffer and die for love.
I understand this better now. As I allowed the death of our baby, the ending of a pregnancy, because I knew it wasn't just about this moment. As I allowed a part of myself to be torn away, as I suffered for love.
Today is Good Friday. It's actually a day about incredible brokenness. And as I sat in a good Friday service this morning, as the message and the music and everything pointed towards a hope that was coming, I wanted to pull the attention back to the darkness that is now.
Good Friday is a day for the mourners, the broken and bruised. It is a day that reminds me of Divine Love who became human and died so that I am not alone in my brokenness and love can penetrate my broken parts.
Richard Rohr says "Jesus' body is a standing icon of what humanity is doing and what God suffers 'with,' 'in' and 'through' us. it is an icon of utter divine solidarity with our pain and our problems."
A woman I follow on instagram shared the story of her miscarriage yesterday and she shared that as she was laboring with their son, her brokenness felt like a holy experience.
I'm almost surprised at how I instinctively related to God in the days that have passed. and maybe its because I sit here in the light of Easter and all of these gospel stories I was told as a kid or maybe its because I have deconstructed and reconstructed enough to find God beyond the ways I was always told I would find God but my anger with God has felt like a holy experience.
I can't describe how or why but this broken, confused, angry version of myself feels as if I am encountering Divine Love in an entirely new way. I am meeting a version of Divine Love that knows what it is like to feel incredible brokenness, pain and trauma.
I've hesitated to talk about where I'm at in my faith journey as it intermingles with grief because I don't believe in God's plan right now, which to a lot of people is key to believing in God. I don't trust that the universe has my back. The God I'm encountering is a God of absolute brokenness. the way I'm meeting Divine Love is this soft knowing amidst the loud roar of my anger.
the God I'm coming face to face with isn't the victorious God of Easter... it is the God of Good Friday.

"Faith is a journey into darkness, into not knowing," R.R

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