one of the few

Have you ever gone to a group confession at a Carnival? Because I have.

The ladies from Walking With Purpose at Saint Rose of Lima volunteered to run the dessert booth at our annual carnival. (just to note: I did not volunteer. I sat in a chair and watched them work. I am in a season of saying "no"to work and "yes" to sit and talk while others work. I will let you know it goes, but so far, so good. For me at least.)

Our awesome Priest stopped by our booth and pulled up a chair, and I am not sure how it happened...but we were suddenly all in a circle....confessing. And then... he absolved us. It was pretty beautiful, except for that part when I confessed a particular sin and he flat out told me, "Oh, that's really bad. Don't do that." Pretty certain he didn't say that to anyone else. So I guess if there were a carnival prize for worst sin, I would have won.

He also told us, "don't sin."

Don't sin.

Said it like it is easy.

I asked my friend, "Was he serious? Like...we should just not sin?

Because isn't that impossible?

Not get angry?

Or jealous?

Or despairing?

Or gossip?

Or use bad language when no other word can express how you feel?

Because if we could actually not ever sin...wouldn't we?

I want holiness more than anything. At least today I do. If you asked me what I wanted more than anything last night, I would have said German chocolate.

And so I am thinking about this today....the narrow gate....the wide road...the paths we choose...and how usually, we just want the easy way out. The pain free. The feel good road. And how those roads? Those roads are the ones that lead to death. To sin. To your priest sitting with you at a carnival saying, "Oh, that is really bad."

"How narrow the gate and constricted the road that leads to life." (Matthew 7:13)

Constricted sounds painful, doesn't it? Constricted sounds like it hurts. Like it is no fun. Like it is hard. And here is what I am thinking about...we love the slogan "I can do hard things". We are all for "no pain no gain" when it comes to sports and fitness. We love to take on house projects and renovations, knowing it won't be easy, but that the end result will be well worth the sweat and inconvenience. But when it comes to our faith? Hard suddenly looks cruel. Hard equals bad. Hard looks like a punishment.

Following the Lord shouldn't be this hard.

And yet, maybe it should.

This idea of maybe hard being good for us is beautifully illustrated by Lisa Brenninkmeyer in her Fearless and Free study. It is something I have been praying on and about for weeks now...and if you can, catch me on WWP Instagram Live this Thursday at 10 AM as I take a deep dive into all the things I know so little about but am desperately trying to live out. This being one of them.

The Gospel today does't only encourage us to seek the narrow gate, to take the narrow road, but it also warns us. "And those who find it are few." (Matthew 7:14)

I want hard not to be good and I want easy more than anything.

But I also want to be one of the few.