and yet i felt him moving me to share words and heart today. because they are about Him and i typed. and i stopped. and i sat and listened more. and walked away. again.
and then my friend texted me almost exactly what this whole heart's spilling was about in her words and it made me smile and tear at the idea of Him nudging again that i wasn't the only one after grief and loss seeing easter differently now. and it was worth sharing and declaring. despite the fear and anxiety i have in coming back to share my heart with those who might judge, i felt encouraged to make sure no one else sat alone in these thoughts. and i didn't want the words to sit in darkness either, corked up as if shamed. no, i wanted to give celebration to them and hold them up to light and say glory. and be bold in my joy for my easter jesus.
i grew up celebrating easter. and jesus. my brother and i learned, thankfully, from our folks, early on, what it truly meant, it was never about the eggs for us. we knew it was about jesus, we were taught it was about the glorious cross! but the eggs and the dresses and the ham? they were all fun too. yearly traditions of easter sundays and eggs hunts on church lawn and family singing the hallelujah chorus with the choir and the pipe organ booming in the old stained glass windowed chapel and a huge family dinner that followed, it meant so much to me and my family. i loved easter growing up. it felt happy and cheery and joyful. each new year and each bright new spring brought another easter sunday. even though just annually, as a kid even, i knew it seemed magical and sweet. it was a favorite time of year for me.
five years ago though, i began to celebrate easter differently.
i saw that my grieving hurting raw heart NEEDED easter every hour, so i celebrated easter every day.
not the easter bunny and the candy easter, but the life saving and life giving cross love and resurrection mercy of my sweet jesus, it was mercifully spilling into every day for me. every hour in fact. it took on skin for me.
every deep crevice of grief and hurt that our daughter's death had left and every selfish heart choice i made each day, it became everyday that i needed that hill death and every hour that i needed that stone to be rolled away. every tear and every hurt and every choice and every thought every hour needed that grace hill and that empty tomb.
"easter jesus is your favorite jesus, right mom? it's where he comes back to save the day?" said liam over and over as he watched me cry with joy and elation and thanksgiving at the jesus storybook bible readings and rescuing words we shared together each night and as i told him over and over these past few years how much the victory on the hill and in the tomb means to my heart that sins and my heart that grieves and my mind that worries....and oh how i pray his catches the same fever-joy. both of our boys.
our latest word i picked for our chalkboard over the kitchen table window. such beautiful truth for a restless prone to wandering heart ....
manger jesus was our messiah sent, in flesh. thank you God. JOY. teaching jesus was imparting wisdom and miracle jesus was sharing God's radical love plan and story unfolding for his people, prophecy lived out. YES! dying saving jesus on a cross meant the plan did in fact go as planned and a perfect man said yes to punishment that i deserved. MERCY. and resurrection jesus meant rescuer. and VICTORY.
it translates to this selfish heart that is flesh-fighting daily and also this hurting momma heart that God was faithful. to come back for us after the garden lie and that he was steadfast and merciful in his rescue plan to restore us to him and he won. he just did. he won. reconciliation won out over brokenness. and life won out over death. righteousness won out over sin. he was making all things new. what sweet precious news to a hurting lost heart. he rescued us.
easter. is just another way of saying. he IS making all things new. GLORY.
so as we come upon this time of year, the last month for our family has been hard. hard as in, called off the bench to walk into the game, to walk the talk of faith and say yes to hard thanks and live out your faith in action and word in unknown territory and challenge....it had me wondering if we would be able to get it all together by easter to celebrate...the clothes, the baskets, the meal, the forgotten devotionals and pinterest ideas i'd glossed over in hopes of making fun memories with the boys..my flesh went to worry yesterday that i had dropped the ball and blogs or FB or pinterest or the world could tell me or possibly remind me that i quite possibly messed up easter this year, but then i remembered my year long celebration of this easter jesus in my heart. and the one i am trying to live out in front of my family and my kids. and my neighbors. and it's why i am not THAT stressed to not be ready for easter this year. because my heart's been ready and living it's truth for years now daily. not just a weekend. it's why i hold that fist full of holiday-world-failure and let it go, release it and free my hands to hold something greater. something deeper and more valuable, scooping up something more meaningful and life changing and lasting. and life giving.
a hard month of grief with our adoption loss (will share later when i have words but God's gracious and we are choosing thanks) and almost two weeks straight now of scary late nights doing breathing treatments with a tired really sick henry... mixed with really trying to press into Him in hard season, looking for thanks and grace and seeing mercy and compassion abound in his mercy towards us....it has left no time for pinterest projects, dyeing easter eggs or planning an outfit or meal or basket of love. and yet, i'm kinda thankful. that my heart has been distracted from the hallmark fluff. thankful for a heart that knows that's not what's needed this weekend. or ever really. all that's needed truly, is a heart that stands in humble grateful awe at calvary's lamb gift and rejoices hallelujah three days later at sin and death conquered. when easter jesus is your favorite, it's easter year round in your heart. you don't need hallmark or hershey's to remind you or harp on you for dropping the ball on seasonal fake grass or chocolate. or maybe even the more serious resurrection eggs or rolls that you'd hoped would bless your kids this season. you can do all of those things and still miss the 'show', miss the grand event. the message.
isn't the blessing of easter more richly and deeply experienced in the every day-lived out- every moments, every choices, every trial-fighting for joy before our kids too? isn't life more imprinted on their hearts lasting longer than any glue or glitter could survive? mercy, i pray so.
because hard thanksgiving in blind stormy life depends on the very blood spilled that gloomy hard day to help you do so and the hope that one stretches hard heart-length home to hold onto in heavy life is found deep-fully and thankfully in the rolled away stone that meant LIFE had won, death had lost. and when we choose that daily grace and that hourly hope as our center and our anchor, our everyday compass and our hourly guide, his resurrection means more and more and goes forward in time to cover it all. not just on a bright cheery sunday in iron pressed sunday best and spiral ham. it matters to come together to celebrate. it brings Him great joy and honor. but it means more with every choice you make too. with every act of confession, repentance and forgiveness. with every messy relationship to deal with, with every little heart that needs discipline and correction and grace, every marriage that needs protecting and fighting for. with every kind deed done to a neighbor and peacemaking done with an enemy, for every disease that will rob life. and for every little voice that was never heard past the womb...we have no hope if that tomb wasn't empty. we need that stone to be rolled away. we need him to rise.
when cancer comes or marriages are robbed or babies and spouses die suddenly for no reason, easter jesus is the only one that makes sense of it all for me. if you live life in hard thanks, the cross becomes your daily soul food and rescue and no OTHER comfort will last you till Kingdom come to heal you or deliver you from great despair. it may comfort but it will not deliver you from it. your good friday aching death gaze is on a man hanging on a tree who suffered and bore God's greatest wrath, death and separation from him. yes the brutal physical death was atrocious and sacrificing but the relational severing that happened between father and son was what cost Christ the most hurt and pain. he was rejected and alone, turned away by his father in the most heart wrenching pain there is. to be separate from Him. because of sin. separated from his father, our father. your easter sunday resurrection gaze is now on him, the very one that TOOK that on so we wouldn't have to. ever. so that in our hard season of suffering and trial, persecution and storm, we would NEVER have to be apart from our God anymore. really any earthly man could have taken that wretched awful beating, right? but only one perfect man could be the perfect ransom for sin's debt and break the trinity and let us in. it had to be God himself. he had to die to kill sin and he had to rise to clean the slate and give new life, to make all things new. to resurrect the dying hearts and give them new life. MERCY. GRACE.
because easter jesus took my place means he became righteousness for me because i cannot be that on my own. because easter jesus rose, the last five years of aching pain have been not wasted or tossed aside BUT also have not been spent alone. in anguish. he has been with me. i've been given the honor to abide in him and he in me. during it all. and so i'm not alone. in any of it. and not only not alone, but empathized with because who better knows that anguish of separation and suffering from broken heart but him. yes his body broke for us, but his heart broke deeper. and vaster more than any of us could bear...he had to rise to end suffering.
a few weeks ago in church, i scribbled on a piece of paper some hope words that had fed me five years ago and since. they were words that rescued me over and over when i'd forget the gospel while hurting. i handed them re-scribbled on folded white to my precious grieving friend, the very heart that texted me Hope today, sitting next to me after worship, both of us in tears from hard thanks and singing...and i whispered to her that this was my hope all these years. and i prayed it would be hers too. the folded paper read the same words as the ones i found, not sure where, and penned on my own piece of paper all those years ago....and still carry today. it's my easter heart anthem year round....
you see he can't give eternal hope to the dead without dying death first. and he can't give restoring peace to the separated lost heart without rising again. he went to the cross to rise again. he is risen and it was his father's rescue plan. for his children. and he did rescue. and he continues to rescue. he had to rise to rescue.
"lent arrives via ashes but Easter bursts on the scene with raucous joy. Easter shatters the heavy sorrow and insists we hear the bold assertion; gloom, sin, injustice and despair have been trampled under the feet of a victorious, resurrected Jesus. ..." - Winn Collier
amen. hallelujah. glory be!
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