ASK. SEEK. KNOCK.
“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives; and the one who seeks, finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.” - Matthew 7:7-12
Ask. Seek. Knock. Today’s gospel reminds me of a prayer before praying by 10th-century Benedictine monk Saint Anselm: “Lord, my heart is before you. I try, but by myself, I can do nothing. Do what I cannot. Admit me to the inner room of love, I ask. You have already heard my silent request. Allow me now to receive. You have enabled me to seek, enable me to find. You have taught me to knock; open me to the closed doors of my habits and attachments.”
This season of Lent, when winter and spring labor with each other into a new transition, encourages us to bring our complete humanness to prayer, all parts of us, including ones we have chosen to deny or bypass at all costs. It asks us, “Do I hear an invitation to greater trust with God who has the welfare of my heart?” Grief, loss, and sorrow were the uninvited guests that welcomed me into 2022. The losses tumbled into my life week after week. From the death of my friends’ parents, my husband’s colleague, and a dear friend, the accumulation of losses and sorrows weighed heavily on my heart. The cost of loving dropped me close to the earth as I accepted the rites of grief.
In prayer and in the tumult of releasing my tears, I came to realize how God was calling me to full-heartedness, a revisioning of grief, not as an event in our lives, but as an ongoing conversation that accompanies us throughout life. God nudged me not to stop when I am tired but to stop when I am done. He asked, “Will you trust that I can come through and will, again and again?” By choosing not to burrow into a hole of comfort, honoring my grief, and granting space and time to metabolize my sorrows, I was reminded of the temporary gift we have been given, these few sweet breaths we call life.
Lord, into your hands, I entrust my spirit.
Tam Lontok