By Nicole Mattke
“There are no events but thoughts and the heart’s hard turning, the heart’s slow learning where to love and whom. The rest is merely gossip, and tales for other times.”
– Annie Dillard
I know repentance as my “heart’s hard turning.”
Today I am on my knees, or in tears, or driving to somewhere mundane like Target and I’m suddenly struck with the reality of Christ, of his great love and mercy, and I am compelled to turn from my wounded and wounding ways and rush towards him.
But tomorrow, or next week, or even five minutes from now when the glossy Target displays grapple for my attention and that feeling of urgency leaves, I will be prone to quickly and casually wander from him.
For me, to repent in a way that sticks is usually “the heart’s slow learning”. The things my heart attaches to hastily are usually the sleek and shallow things of the world. Lent reminds me to take time to repent of my fickleness.
The repentance that involves true remorse, grief over sin, and longing for holiness needs to marinate in me a little bit before I will truly change. Lent is a season for us to leave a wide open space in our hearts and minds for the Holy Spirit to do this hard-turning work in our lives, to reveal to us our soul’s barrenness and our incredible need for our Savior.
When I take the necessary time to really examine my heart and enter into repentance during Lent, I find that turning away from sin leaves vacuums in my life. Vacuums, especially those created by removing something that felt good or brought me comfort, leave me feeling prickly and desirous. If I just try to weed something sinful out of my life, ripping it up by the roots and leaving a gaping hole, usually that hole will quickly be filled with something else shiny and unnecessary or even destructive.
So repentance sticks better and burrows deeper when I don’t just renounce the things I don’t want to do anymore, but also allow the Holy Spirit to replace those things with what Christ intended for me all along.
I must turn away from something but then must also turn towards something else. I place my affections and desires where the lavish life Christ has for me is found.
I learn to love and long for what I should.
This Lent, for me learning “where to love and whom” can look something like this:
To not simply repent of my anger and callous words, but to let Christ feed me out of his abundance and teach me words of patience and gentleness.
To not simply repent of my ingratitude, but to let Christ nourish me out of his abundance and replace my lust for more things, things, things with a spirit of thankfulness and generosity.
To not simply repent of my pride in thinking I can handle everything by myself, but to let Christ teach me to humbly depend on Him alone.
To not simply repent of my apathy, but to let Christ gently but fiercely show me where to love and whom—which of course will bring me to love Him, and his sweet face in all the worn out faces I’ll encounter today. Even my own worn out face.
Repentance, for me, sticks best when I ask Christ, allow Christ, and long for Christ to turn my hard heart slowly back to him.
May we take the time to let him lead us into true repentance this Lent.
Nicole Mattke lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin with her husband and 2.5- year-old twin boys, and attends Christ Redeemer. Contact Nicole.