It’s Maundy Thursday, and that word means holy. But my day hasn’t felt holy. It has felt completely shitty. Lungs-of-steel children screaming for hours straight taking a break only to yell at me that they can’t breathe. Broken fillings, rude parents. ENOUGH! I thought as I made an escape to my office, and I was not referring to the holy Enough, but to my capacity for frustration and irritation. How am I supposed to write about Jesus later? I thought next, because when I committed to a (holy) week of daily blogging in short, reverent pieces, my commitment was made in the quiet of prayer, not the din of chaos. A place whose noise and lack of cooperation will not change just because I stomp my feet and say bad words.

End of the work day, quiet car. The Husband tells me via phone about his own terrible day, and we make plans to hit the wine bar tonight. And hit it hard. And then I remember what this day means: the Last Supper. The Garden of Gethsemane. Not my will, but his. And the only one who ever really meant those words.

I come to the Table not for rehabilitation, but redemption. A few years ago, I would have given in to guilt, confessed the potty mouth and tried harder next time. Now I know about the sin beneath the sin–my constant dissatisfaction with everything in the garden, my demand for the forbidden tree. And his response–drops of blood-sweat in the second garden, an ascent to a fatal tree. Old redeemed by new. Perfect symmetry.

I drink the cup of wine now because of the cup he took then. I cast my deadly doing down, along with this unholy day, and I walk my woefully imperfect self to the Table. This is where I belong. This is home. There is a place for me–he bought it with his life–and I sit and eat.