Grace, Thanks, and Joy....In Other Words, Eucharisteo

 

 

I write often that we are all on this healing  journey somewhere between celebration and sorrow. And today I feel that I am hovering right in the middle of it all - teetering on a balance beam, trying to maintain my composure. The past week was the joyous wedding of lifelong friends. But today I will return to that same sanctuary to celebrate the life and memory of yet another daughter, taken too soon for our understanding. I will enter my sanctuary, with the light flooding through the stain-glassed windows, and a flood of memories and thoughts will fill my heart.

How can it be? I was just sitting here with my husband and son and daughter-in-law, remembering their own wedding a year ago, greeting friends, almost giddy with celebration and joy. Listening to the beautiful music, hearing the familiar words of The Lord Bless You and Keep You. And when I allowed my heart to wander, I remembered, too, my daughter's memorial service. Funny, Be Thou My Vision was sung at both the wedding and the memorial. I love that. Songs of faith remain constant and true - from birth to death, through celebration and through sorrow.

This morning I found myself rereading some of  Ann Voskamp's One Thouosand Gifts. She speaks of eucharisteo, the giving of thanks, as never ending, as the preparation for full restoration, in sorrow and in joy. She says , "Eucharisteo, the Greek work with the hard meaning and the harder meaning to live - this is the only way from empty to full. I know it's true.

Sharaya Crossan, in her blog Eucharisteo Journey writes beautifully about Jesus, just before his death, taking the bread, giving  thanks for it, breaking it, and sharing it.
She writes, "The root word of eucharisteo in the Greek is charis meaning gift or grace. He took the bread and saw it as a gift. He held it and gave thanks. Is not all we have been given us by the Giver of all? Do we see the common like bread and drink as pure grace, unmerited gifts from He who can do nothing but give? Do we take up each moment of life in this way, both the mundane and the trials of life?

Charis also forms the root of the Greek word chara, meaning joy. Those three words...grace, thanksgiving, joy...come together. In all circumstances, even in our greatest trial, we can receive from Him this sustenance. Now served to us with nail-scarred hands, first we taste of grace—that He delights in us in His generous benevolence. Then we savor it with thanksgiving that both springs up from our spirit and nourishes us right down to our souls. And our dessert? Joy! Joy...from thanksgiving...from grace, freely bestowed on us, His beloved."