Alive: Lent DevotionalsSample

Alive: Open your arms

How to be more alive

First, open your arms to your own humanity;

give the gorgeous mess of your entirety a warm welcome,

remembering that all of you is loved, free from limit or condition.

Second, drop your heart into a pool of wonder –

that sacred, healing water found among the stillness,

found wherever there are trees or birds or streams or hills

or the opulence of an unfiltered sky.

Do not let the screens hem you in;

seek instead the heaven-wrought, the spirit-woven –

all that brightly sings of the Abundance.

Third, let your love travel beyond all bounds,

let the curtains tear before it so that nothing is left unadored –

including your brokenness and the failings of the world.

Every soul walks with a limp,

and not one is unworthy of compassion’s embrace.

And finally, remember. Remember your divine heritage.

Remember the holy sacrament poured out for you

in the form of a gentle man’s blood.

Remember that the cold shackles of death could not hold Him,

could not stop Him from coming back for you.

Author: Gideon Heugh, Tearfund