Hard to believe how quickly time is passing. I am really busy with rehearsals for the play I am directing at school and the play I am assistant directing at Thompson High School. Both processes are going really well so far! And then there is class and homework and housework and other family things happening so I am very busy- but not overwhelmed at this point. If going back to school has taught me one thing it is how to budget my time and how to say no to the things I just can not do!
In church Sunday I realized that Lent starts this week- tomorrow actually. While thinking about it I thought back to this same season in previous years. As you know I did not grow up with any kind of church in my life. As an adult I have learned what a journey lent can be. I have had those years when I fully immersed myself in the process- starting with Ash Wednesday, giving up varying things, adding Bible studies, fasting and ending with a very meaningful Holy Week of services including Maundy Thursday, The Way of the Cross walk through Homewood, Good Friday service of darkness and then Easter morning Sunrise Service with the youth before the big worship service at 11.
For the past two years I have been involved in a play during Lent. I was busy with classes at school as well as rehearsals for sometimes one and another time 2 plays! I missed almost all of the services. I have come to terms with the fact that I have a different life right now, so I have not been hard on myself for having to make these adjustments. I have not forgotten my prayer time each day and I have attended most Sunday services along the way!
This year I was thinking about my schedule and realized that the one play I am directing is scheduled to be performed during Holy Week! That means that I will definitely miss all of the events in church that week. Luckily we are not doing the play festival on Easter Sunday which also happens to be my wedding anniversary this year!
During my three years of school I have missed lots of football games much to the chagrin of my family and myself! My sports oriented family could not understand how my college had so little understanding of the importance of those games! I worked box office for shows scheduled during Alabama games and missed other games due to workshops planned on football Saturdays. This week we have a mandatory workshop planned for Valentine’s Day! And then the play festival during Holy Week. I guess there is no break in theatre for football, love or God!! I have just learned to go with the flow and do the best I can. I think God put me where I am so He must be OK with things. Tim understands Montevallo theatre waits for no man so we will have a late Valentine’s dinner and as for football, well, by next football season I will have graduated! (We were looking at all of the away games we might add to next season to make up for all of the home games I have missed the past three seasons!)
Which brings me back to Lent this year. I started thinking about the play I am doing, the theme of the play, the way I want to present it and I realized that indeed I am where God might need me to be right now. I will miss all of the things at my church but maybe what I am doing in my play might make a difference to someone who does not have a church. Maybe it might make a non-believer pause for just a moment. Maybe it will start a conversation. There is more than one way to “have church” and maybe I need to be right where I will be on Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, not in church but in the theatre. It means being apart from my family those days, but I have future years for that I hope. This year I have a once in a lifetime opportunity and I now feel very honored to have it. I plan to make the most of it. Isn’t that all any of us can do? Make the most of each day and each blessing that comes our way?
