It’s a gray Friday morning.

My four children are stomping their feet and chanting nonsense around a kitchen chair (which they are also using as a make-shift drum, hammering it with colored pencils.)

Tonight, my husband and I will attempt to tone this act down, make it sit quietly in a hushed, dimly lit sanctuary, and be reverent.

I can hear myself now.

Sit, without fidgeting. Listen, without fussing. Hold on, it’s nearly over. Think of tomorrow, the church egg hunt. Think of Sunday morning, baskets and ribbons and He is Risen, He is Risen Indeed!

For all that I’ve ever done for you, please. Just. Be. Still.

If I’m being honest about the whole thing, this year, this moment in my adult life, this moment in my spiritual life – I need this. Too many gray mornings, too many gray moments. I am craving the black. The finality, the absolute, the reminder that in one sacrificial moment, all of history shifted.

For me.

For the woman who just snapped at her children for not being quiet enough for her to think clearly while counting the scoops of grounds into her coffee filter.

For the thirty-four year old girl whose head and whose heart are feeling farther and farther apart, as life pulls her every which way.

As a child, I think I always imagined that faith is secured in adulthood. The grown-ups in my church seemed to have it together, they seemed to know how to raise their children. They seemed to have a trust and an understanding that I certainly hadn’t yet figured out.

As a teen, I think I had some vague, naive and unspoken belief that sin wasn’t as tempting after you said I Do and had children, and that if I could just grow up, it would be easier. It would be bliss.

What a cruel wake up call to be mid-thirties and finding every opposite to be true.

Growing up doesn’t bring the clarity I hoped for, and it certainly doesn’t tone down any temptations or miraculously make you disciplined, (or patient, selfless, or saved in-and-of-and-by-yourself. ) You can be  an adult, dress the part, wear a wedding ring, have children wrapped around your knees and looking up to you for answers between the hymns- and you can still be a mess.

The questions grow more clear, but the answers more opaque.

So, here I sit, on a gray Friday morning that will slowly carry me to the Good (but somehow, always “black” in my mind) Friday service. To the cross.

And I know that I need it.

Maybe more than ever before.

Listen, without fussing- my wild and wandering heart.

Sit, without fidgeting – my scattered and frantic brain.

Hold on, it’s almost over – Melanie.

It’s coming.

He is risen. He is risen indeed.

Just. Be. Still.