I Identify as a Pirate

We are once again in the Lenten season, and as I prepare for my time in prayer and fasting, a sweet memory comes to mind from my experience as an 8-year-old trying to wrap my head around the “why” of Lent.

My family labeled me as “precocious” when I was young. I am pretty sure they said that before there was a diagnosis for ADHD in the DSM-5. I was full of energy, made up stories, and oblivious to being a normal little girl in 1964.

The Sisters who taught me might have seen through the whirl and found the sparkle; it was my memory of continued reprimand that says otherwise. Day after day, I was shaped back into the student they wanted me to be. A little girl with clean knees, a beanie pinned to the back of my head, a blazer and jumper straightened, and most of all, silent.

Walking home, school bags bumping against bare legs, my girlfriends would be making plans to gather in somebody’s rec room to play “School” – which I knew to mean playing “Nun”. I didn’t want to be a Nun. I didn’t like them much.

The Tressler brothers would streak past, making their way to the park on Bannockburn Avenue, to climb up into the oaks to play “Pirates”.  That’s what I wanted to be! I identified as a pirate- Loud, unconventional, and free.

There was no room in Lent for pirates.

I knew when the season began. I would come home with my cardboard rice box, with a slit at the top, to collect allowances and money from Nana. On Palm Sunday, we would bring our heavy little boxes balanced on our open hands as our little sacrifices to lay before the altar.

During Lent, my mother would cast a quiet shadow on our home. There was little music, no dessert, and fish on Fridays as we prepared to sacrifice as Jesus had sacrificed for us. We went to the Stations of the Cross. We said the rosary together. We were not loud.

I was no longer allowed to jump from couch to table to chair, avoiding hot lava that flowed red on the living room floor. I had to let go of who I was and how I saw myself. This made me squirm. I didn’t feel free.

The thought of rebelling against my mother didn’t even occur to me, though, because truly, even a pirate loved Jesus and wanted to be good.

Fast forward to today. The Lenten season begins. I have set aside consumerism and social media, picked up fasting, a daily Lenten devotional, and a pause from the world's noise to come back to center and connect with the Holy. Hosea 12:6(TPT) And you, to your God you must return. Stand guard over divine love and justice, and always put your trust in him as you wait patiently for your God.

The truth is, I still squirm.

Yet it's in the discomfort that I know I am serious about emptying myself of identity and filling it with God. I am surprised and humbled by my anxiety about letting go of the idols that keep me from the still small voice.

The barrier between my God and me is thick with distraction. The sense of urgency I wrap up in my husband’s cancer, my new website, my next book, my family's assorted needs, and pain. I am a wife, mother, caregiver, writer, administrator, sponsor, elder, and sister. The list is long. My roles block out my true identity- that of a child of God

Letting go of self allows me to see my emptiness not as a lack of something, but as a space to restore hope, direction, purpose, and priority, as God fills it and clarifies my identity once again.  Psalm 62:5 (NIV) Find rest, oh my soul, in God alone.

 When Christ has risen, I will be renewed in the spirit, fresh with ideas of how to serve His glory, and ready to do His will.

And of course, I will still nurture the pirate in me, loud, unconventional, and most of all, FREE.