141: You Are Blessed
One question I’m asked occasionally is if I’ll ever write a book. My response is usually something along the lines of, “I hope to. We’ll see.” What I don’t typically share is that I actually already wrote a book. Several, in fact. Way back in the 90s.
My current body of work includes children’s books and only children’s books—the ones I wrote {and illustrated!} when I myself was a child. You’ll find titles like, The Colorful Cow, My Summer Vacation, The Easter Story {Pop-Up Edition}, How the Platypus Got Its Tail, A Dream of Dolphins, and Julianne and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.
That last title might sound familiar. And that’s because, when I was in second or third grade, our class was given an assignment to write our own version of Judith Viorst’s classic children’s book, Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. If you aren’t familiar, the story follows a young boy, Alexander, through a day he continually calls terrible, horrible, no good, and very bad. As we read along, we find out why. From waking up with gum in his hair, to issues with his friends and siblings, to a cavity at the dentist and lima beans for dinner, on this particular day, things are not going Alexander’s way.
As you might imagine, things also do not go my way in my version of the story. It was hilarious to remember the kinds of circumstances that contributed to a bad day when I was eight. Arriving late to school, forgetting my lunchbox, extra homework, ham for dinner {never was a fan a ham}, and my sister getting to pick the show we watched on TV that night, just to name a few. The stakes were pretty low back then, for sure.
It’s interesting to consider what makes a bad day, bad. What makes a good day, good. To mark the circumstances that contribute to what we would consider a good or bad life. It’s also interesting to consider how often I equate the state of my circumstances with the presence and love of God. If things are good, God must be present and active in my life, right? And if things are bad, well, the opposite must be true. Sound familiar?
In the last episode, remind{h}er 140, I offered a simple reading of the Beatitudes found at the very beginning of Matthew 5. I won’t read those verses again right now, but you are welcome to go back and listen to that episode if you haven’t already, or if you want a little refresher.
The nine Beatitudes are found at the very beginning of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. Four of them are also found in Luke’s version of that same sermon. Each beatitude begins with the same familiar word: blessed. Now, I don’t about you, but when I initially hear that word, the circumstances that come to mind are circumstances that reflect an easy, abundant, flourishing life. Free from struggle. Everything working out, going according to plan, devoid of interruption or hardship or struggle.
What’s interesting about the Beatitudes, though, is that the people Jesus called “blessed” probably experienced—at least to a certain degree—lives filled with terrible, horrible, no good, very bad days. Challenges. Disappointments. Setbacks. Heartbreaks. Other circumstances I know I cannot fully relate to. I’m sure theirs were not lives we would think to call blessed.
And yet, that is exactly what Jesus does.
He scans the crowd in front of him and sees the powerless, the grieving, the longing, the waiting, the worn out, the poor, the taken-advantage-of, the unnoticed, the persecuted, the ones who—try as they might—just can’t seem to get ahead. He looks them straight in the eye and says, “You are blessed.”
That might have been the first time they’d heard a word like that used to describe them. And I imagine hearing it was a pretty powerful experience. Because Jesus’ statement here wasn’t necessarily a call to simply grin and bear it; to bypass it and pretend all was well. Instead, it was a reminder that they were not abandoned or forgotten; they belonged; they were loved; they mattered. And they were not alone, even in the middle of the worst of it all. Their circumstances could not separate them from that truth. Even more, it was an invitation for them to step into the story, to participate in God’s good work in the world. Because in God’s Kingdom, these blessed people were included and had a significant role to play.
It must have been a profound moment for the people who heard it that very first time. And I wonder what it might mean for you, for me, for us, today.
In a sermon called God’s Ferris Wheel, author and priest Barbara Brown Taylor likens the life of a person to the experience of riding a ferris wheel. She offers that as we live our lives, we will know what is like to feel on top of the world. And we will know what it is like to hit rock bottom. Such is life.
The constant truth she highlights is this: no matter where we are on the wheel at any given time, we are never far from the heart of God. We circle it, are tethered to it, are held together by it. And maybe that’s at least part of what Jesus was getting at as he proclaimed the good news of the Beatitudes.
Difficult circumstances do not indicate the absence of God or some sort of failure of faith. Difficult circumstances are part of the human condition, part of what it means to be a person. Part of what it means to live a life. They don’t disqualify any of us from the love of God. In fact, I’m learning that it is the love and presence of God that ultimately sustains us through it—whatever “it" may be. When that sort of blessed reality comes our way, this is an important truth to remember.
And of course, on those days and during those seasons when our circumstances are looking up, the call is never to look down on. Instead, we seek to uplift. We follow the way of Jesus and come on down, reminding others that they, too, are blessed. Loved. Valued. Noticed. Included. Remembered.
So today, if you are in the middle of a difficult season, remember that you are blessed. Not because all is well, but because God is near—with you and within you to guide you and sustain you every step of the way. As Barbara Brown Taylor reminds us,
“Neither the going up nor the coming down is under our control, as far as I can tell, but wherever we happen to be, the promise is the same. Blessed are you who loose your grip on the way things are, for God shall lead you in the way things shall be.”
May it be so, as together, we continue to become the people God calls and invites us to be.