It’s Good Friday, the day the bottom dropped out for the disciples. And once again, Holy Week is a microcosm of life.

My Lenten meditations were intended to be thought provoking, inspiring, challenging, and comforting. When I read or think something that nudges me a step closer to the kind of inner life I hope for, I write about it and hope it does the same for someone else. All was going well, and then the most predicable and totally unexpected thing happened.

Life smacked me. I knew this would happen. It always happens when I peel away a few careful layers and write about what I find. Life then steps up and says, “Here, let me pull,” and BAM, I have a gaping wound.

Then life smiled and said, “Now, let’s see how that sitting still and being mindful works. Go ahead and use prayer, meditation, whatever you want to call it, to slow the panic and allow wisdom to emerge.” I tried. Repeatedly. Each time my mind darted around like a sparrow in a burning room and my stomach knotted up.

For the past two days, the only time I could focus was when I was engaged in a concrete task that distracted me. Thank God for jobs with a deadline.

I will not be specific about the gaping wound. I can write about my part, but it also involves another person and is not my story to tell. But this has been my reminder that I am not in control. Not of events or outcomes, my own or anyone else’s.

Control is where I started these Lenten meditations. Here I am again. I anticipate that up ahead for me are lessons about how to be thoroughly empathic with another person AND detached from their decisions and the consequences of those decisions. That sounds impossible today, but I suspect that is precisely what all that I have been writing about is intended to do.

Much of what we call Holy Week was holy hell for the disciples. Why should it be any different for us?