the Hope of easter!

easter does magical things for my heart of suffering.

it breathes life back into my heart.

while hating death and the separation it brings all year long, easter comes with the season of spring to renew my soul.

november is sydney's birthday. fall is hard. it's when we lost her. winter is full of holidays that are spent without her. the cold harsh winter ironically resembles how my heart feels throughout the season. i miss her so much.

BUT just as spring brings new life to the ground, it also ushers in a new renewal of my heart. and i realized this year that it has to do with easter.

it has to do with the resurrection. the same God that had his Son be crushed and brutally murdered on a cross (who had to endure, Himself, watching His Son suffer) is the same God who breathed new life literally into that same Son and raised him from the dead IS the same powerful God who can heal my dying hurting heart. it's at easter time that i am reminded of a God who has RESURRECTION POWER. if He has the power to breathe new life into His son, which ultimately saved my soul, He has the same power to breathe new life over and over into this grieving heart. that merciful healing power is at my gracious use if i will just call on it. sometimes when you are hurting or longing for something, you feel as if NOTHING will help, nothing will ease the pain, no one could possibly understand your hurting heart, it will always feel like this. easter is a beautiful, screaming joyful, loud trumpet of Hope to remind you that is just not true. easter lovingly screams hope to me. getting my attention with songs and colors and stories and an image of a man bleeding on a cross for me, yes. BUT THE EMPTY TOMB is the most wonderful celebratory scream of all. VICTORY!~ that same victory can be won in your heart if you call upon the God who moved the stone from that tomb in the first place. HE can move the impossible stones over our hearts. put there by tragedy or our own self-doing. HE CAN move the stones to reveal new life hiding behind. HE CAN. HE WILL! HE WANTS TO do that for us!!

easter reminds me of a Man who died for me. and who rose to be victorious over death. over his own death of course at first. and over my death. but also over death that separates me from my girl. easter reminds me and my heart that there will come a day that all this hurt and heartache will stop. because of what He did for us, reconciling us back to our Father, means an eternity of the opposite of what i feel now. ache. longing.

easter always comes at the most wonderful time in my heart. the God of easter rescues my heart just in time to reveal a loving and merciful and GRACIOUS God who tore the veil and conquered death and allowed the painful separation of death to only last for this lifetime on earth....BECAUSE one day, soon.....I will be HOME with my savior, my God and my girl.....