Each year during Lent, I try to reflect on the year and things that I would like to change spiritually. This year was no different. I was going to really work on my own spiritual journey and try to do more for people in my life. I started off strong and then truthfully got too tired to accomplish everything that I had set out to do. As I sat at mass today, on the eve of Palm Sunday, I listened to them read the gospel that I have heard so many times before. I am always struck by the whole reading of the Passion, but always come back to Peter. To me, Peter is the most human element. I too have read the words about “picking up my cross and following God”. I too have been all in and could not imagine ever denying God. I am not saying that I’m not a strong believer in God, even in the hard times. However, I’m also not saying that when I have come to lowest points of my life, like my cancer diagnosis, I haven’t said (either literally or figuratively) to God, I said I would take up my cross, but not that one… (maybe we don’t have a specific idea of what that cross would be for us, but I think most of us have more definite ideas of what it would not be or at least what we hope it wouldn’t be). 

Peter’s story resonates so much with me because I too have a strong faith, but when so much has been tested of me in the past year, it’s been a whole lot harder to have faith and hand everything over to God. I went through so many stages of grief- including but not limited to: denial, despair, anger, bargaining, etc., but after all of these passed, then I was able to wade through the muck that I was left with. The choice of staying stuck in a bad place or trying to navigate what happens next. That’s what the past year has looked like- a continuous re-adjustment of what the next phase of things looks like. I’ve passed through so many of these phases, like small towns along my the way, but continue to need help with navigation of where I’m going. This is where I am able to re-pick up my cross and continue on with what I was made to do. 

After all, He has known the plans for me all along. Perhaps it wasn’t that I refused my cross, or lost my way, but instead that I put it down when it got too heavy, along the way.