Why I did not go to church on Good Friday

I spent the majority of my growing-up years in churches where, if you loved Jesus, you showed up "every time the doors were open."  If there was a service, you were there with a smile pasted on your face and a Bible under your arm.  Let's just say: it was a policy aimed at quantity rather than quality.

Now that I'm Anglican, I've learned a whole new way to look at church.  Holy Week always trips me up though -- so many services, each beautiful in its own way.  Shouldn't I show just because it's a good thing to do?

Alas, good things are not always holy things, and finding God is no quadratic equation.

This year I found myself wondering about attending a Good Friday service.  You see, very cold temperatures (at least for Florida) early in the week had derailed my plans for planting my garden during spring break.  I still had many plants sitting meekly around my flower beds, waiting for their turns to be buried in the now-warm soil.

So it was a choice -- gardens or church?

And I thought, surely this is not really a choice.  If I love Jesus, won't I choose church?  (Old ways of thinking cling like dead leaves to bare branches.)

There was a whisper -- "Plant the garden."

So I did.  First time missing church on a Good Friday since I had Good Friday church to go to.

As I dug deep, pulling out old roots to make room for new ones to grow, I thought, "This is Good Friday."  Not all liturgy is words.  Holiness is not locked within four walls.

That is why I did not go to church on Good Friday.

--Sarah