Asking good questions

My wife and I are getting ready for a long-deferred bathroom remodel.

We've rented a dumpster preparing for the detritus of construction.

While we've got the big green monstrosity in the driveway, we're using the occasion to throw stuff out.

Something fortunately saved from the landfill is a book by Laura Story that I used to lead a Bible study a few years ago.

The title is eye-catching.

"When God Doesn't Fix it."

Laura is an accomplished musician and a Grammy Award-winning singer/songwriter.

In 2004 at age 25, Laura married Martin.

In February 2006, while attending a conference in St. Louis, she received a voicemail message from her husband.

Martin told her he had a brain tumor.

He's alive today, but the subsequent surgeries left Martin a very different man from the one Laura married.

On the first page of her book, Laura writes the following words.

"We're all just one phone call away from learning the results of a test, news of an affair, death of a loved one, the loss of a job or a thousand other ways our hope can be shattered."

Living with a diminished spouse with a long-term disability, committed to her marriage and trusting in God for answers, Laura poses a question found on the back cover of her 2015 nonfiction account.

"Is it possible that good things can come out of our broken dreams?"

Other reflection

In the 1991 movie "Defending Your Life", the recently deceased protagonist is asked, "Is this how you thought it would be?"

The interlocutor, in using the word "it", meant heaven.

I'd like to amend the question in the following way.

I don't want to discuss heaven, about which I hope but know next to nothing.

I'd rather discuss something more tangible.

To wit: the here and now.

Here's my amended query offered for your perusal.

Friends, is this how you thought your life would be?

Twenty years ago, I expected to be a pastor for the rest of my working life.

My story hasn't quite worked out that way.

The explanation for what transpired is unnecessary, not germane for this column and is a bit fatiguing to read.

I lived it and have no desire mentally or emotionally to revisit those events.

Suffice it to say as you read this missive my occupation today is as business editor of this newspaper.

Frankly, this writer never saw that train coming down the tracks.

Lent's purpose

There are many questions one could ask as we move through the season of Lent. One of them is in bold type above.

Lent is the season of questions.

A little history is helpful.

In the year 325 C.E. -- formerly known as A.D. or "Anno Domini, meaning "Year of Our Lord" -- the Lenten season was born during a religious council.

There's nothing explicit about Lent in the New Testament and some traditions ignore it because the season is not authorized in Scripture.

Bluntly put, Lent is a 40-day period created for the purpose of getting Christians ready for Easter.

Easter, the holiday commemorating the resurrection of Jesus, is the zenith of the Christian experience and is too important to be allowed to sneak up on us every year.

Lent is supposed to get us Easter-ready using the tools -- among others -- of Bible reading, prayer, fasting and the intentional doing of good works.

I would add to the aforementioned one more tool: ask good questions.

Laura Story's question about good things arising from broken dreams causes me to pose three others as we pass through Lent once again this year.

In the interests of full disclosure, this triad of queries comes from a Feb. 26 sermon by Rev. Paul Womack, pastor of Hurlbut Memorial United Methodist Church in Chautauqua, New York -- a congregation I visit multiple times each year.

Questions

• What are you trying to do with your life?
• Why?
• How is it working out for you?

Reader, I commend these simple and declarative queries for your reflection.

I'll be thinking about them between now and April 9.