I awoke with a start on March 1, seemingly for no other reason than to think, “I really should take down the Advent lights.” The thought made my countenance drop, but it didn’t change the fact that it was time. The days are lengthening, the weather warming, spring is coming and Advent is over, as are the dark nights of winter that welcomed the cozy string of starlight hanging in the front window.
For those who don’t know, our family began hanging stars in our front living room windows three years ago as a visual reminder of the Advent season. Each Sunday of Advent, we light another star, slowly building toward Christmas: Hope, Peace, Joy, Love and finally, Celebration. Even after we put away the rest of Christmas, we leave the stars lit during the dark and cold of winter, the warm glow pushing into the dark night, but also providing a delightful ambiance to our living room. This year, my family spent countless evenings each curled up with a book, enveloped in the coziness of those lights.
And so, none of us necessarily wanted to see an end to this starlit season, but just like time has a habit of doing, it marches on, heedless of my occasional desire to slow its passage.
I know many of you think I’m crazy to hold on to winter. And, while it’s true that I really do enjoy winter weather, I also enjoy elements from every season. I’m a true Kansan and love weather, what can I say? So to feel that disheartened about moving from one season to the next really was strange, even for me.
I started gently pulling on some threads, trying to figure it out. I tend to do better at dealing with things if I can at least understand the root, so a little self-examination was in order. “What is going on with me, God? I feel so sad,” I prayed that morning, still curled up on the couch directly below the glow of stars.
I didn’t hear an audible, but I’m confident God heard my plea for help, as later in the day as I moved forward with boxing up Advent, I realized how — even though the start of spring was coming either way — physically taking down the lights made it real — spring was coming, and with it my busiest season.
As you might know, I’ve been a middle school and high school assistant track coach1 since 2013. That means aside from 2020 when we didn’t have track due to Covid, and a year I took off for health reasons, I’ve spent hours each spring teaching athletes to both long jump and triple jump. Because we are a joint middle school and high school program, it’s best to think of it as coaching two teams — I plan different practices for each group and I go to different meets for each group, sometimes up to three meets in one week during the heart of the season. It’s always been busy, but somewhere along the way the busyness started to really get to me, and dread began to set in. I dread, dread. I don’t like feeling that level of overwhelm, especially about my life, but that’s where I found myself as I physically put away winter and mentally tried to embrace spring.
By now, it’s mid-March and I have two weeks of practice under my belt. That feels like an accomplishment, but it’s come at a cost. I haven’t felt this exhausted for quite some time. Over ten years ago, I frequently wrote about dealing with adrenal fatigue, and these last weeks have felt like a throwback to the days when taking a shower or dusting furniture put me on the couch. Someone recently asked me if there were any medications I could take, but the reality is, the biggest help for fatigue is to limit activity…which…is not possible.
It feels meaningful, somehow, that I am processing these things during Lent — a Christian season typically marked by fasting, prayer, reflection and repentance during the 40 days leading up to Easter. At first, I was struck by a little irony, that in a season of subtracting, I’m adding. It doesn’t seem quite right to increase during a season of decrease, especially when all the while, my energy levels cry out for relief. Instead of slowing down, I’m pushing through. Instead of backing off, I’m reminding myself that the season is short, I’ve done it before, and I can do it again. One day at a time. One day at a time. One day at a time.
On the other hand, though, what better time than Lent to acknowledge my profound weakness? I’m finite. My strength fails. I get tired easily and I’m starting to feel the physical affects of aging, even as I watch it happen in the mirror with fine lines, wrinkles and gray hair.
As I’ve thought about it more, feeling weak during Lent isn’t a bad thing. It’s physical proof of a spiritual truth: I cannot save myself.
Scripture is clear on this premise, and over the years, I’ve learned not to be ashamed of my weakness. It now gives me joy to proclaim that I am weak, but Christ? Christ is not! One text that comes to mind is 2 Corinthians 12:7-10 where the Apostle Paul describes his own “thorn in the flesh” this way: “So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”2
Eric Schumacher, in his book The Good Gift of Weakness, says this: “God gives us everything — our forgiveness, sanctification, and future glorification — in Christ by grace through faith. We bring nothing. We add nothing. God supplies it all — everything.”3
I’m under no impression that this spiritual understanding will make the hardship of my upcoming spring disappear. I’m also aware that accepting the reality of weakness doesn’t exempt me from the weakness of the flesh4 that Jesus talked about to his disciples in the Garden of Gethsemane on the night he was betrayed and brought to trial: “Then Jesus went with them to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to his disciples, ‘Sit here, while I go over there and pray.’ And taking with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, he began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then he said to them, ‘My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here, and watch with me.’ And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, saying, ‘My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.’ And he came to the disciples and found them sleeping. And he said to Peter, ‘So, could you not watch with me one hour? Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.’”5
The Friday before spring break, I hit my own breaking point. I was exhausted. I had just cut approximately 160 pieces of pie at the library for Pi Day. I still had practice coming up. And I yielded to the fleshly temptation of being grouchy with one of my co-workers. Instead of fleeing, I took the opportunity to express some of my frustration. Regret set in almost immediately, even as I was in the process of venting. I repented to the Lord and I apologized. My co-worker accepted my apology, but I’m still ashamed of myself. I want my spirit AND MY FLESH to be willing. But, after that public display of weakness, I now know that I need to be extra careful, particularly in this upcoming season of busyness, not to give my flesh an inch or it will take a mile. I can see this revelation as a gift, and thankfully, this is growth my sanctification affords. With the strength of conviction from the Holy Spirit, I can be on guard for this fleshly response to exhaustion. I can repent and apologize quickly where warranted, and in these moments, again reminded of my inherent weakness, I’m given another opportunity to look to Christ and worship His great strength.
If you’d like a little more reading about my coaching experience, this is the piece I wrote at the end of the 2024 season:
Quoted from the ESV
Eric M. Schumacher, “The Good Gift of Weakness” (Harvest House Publishers, 2024), 124.
Schumacher, “The Good Gift of Weakness,” 170.
Matthew 26:36-41 (ESV)
Additional Resources:
The Good Gift of Weakness: God’s Strength Made Perfect in the Story of Redemption by Eric Schumacher
Ragged: Spiritual Disciplines for the Spiritually Exhausted by Gretchen Ronnevik
I have ambivalent feelings about Lent. I grew up Episcopalian, in which Lent was a BIG DEAL. I interpreted it as a time of sadness, where our responsibility was to feel sorry for all the wrongs I have done. Given the fact that I was extremely introverted, overly self-conscious about how people saw me, and given to the depressive side, Easter Sunday couldn't come too soon.
In my years as a pastor, I gradually pulled away from any emphasis on Lent. There were people in almost all my churches who spoke of what they were giving up for Lent. I never chided anyone for their decisions and personal practices. But I've always felt that I should not impose on a church body any tradition or practice which Scripture does not demand. No one should believe that they must mount some heroic feat of spiritual achievement to be pleasing to God. Jesus is not recruiting some Mission Impossible team to do what the rest of the church can't.
The Christian life is steady journey toward the end for which we were redeemed. We are given ordinary means of grace as a church to pursue this end - Scripture, the Sacraments, and Prayer. It's not rocket science. It's not a climb to Mount Everest. The message of the gospel is that the climb was made which we could not make.
So yes, weakness is a huge factor for the Christian to grasp; but it's not a season. It's built into the journey of following Jesus. According to Paul, it was the fine print of the apostolic "contract" (2 Corinthians is so good a this point).
Okay, so this is WAAAAY too long and probably sounds like the scoldings of a Russian Babushka. Apologies!
Blessings and well-wishes.
Yay!!