I left my family at home this Good Friday. Some sleeping. Some awake. It's holiday so no school and most people don't work. We have no internet at home so I am sitting here at work before the one therapist comes in today, and I have a few moments to prcoess my thoughts. Friday's I get to drive the BMW to work since Aaron doesn't go in until noon and so I always feel extra special Friday mornings speeding around, feeling like I'm on the top of my game. I drove to the local Martin's Supermarket which I never do. Grabbed muffins for breakfast and a Latte at the Starbucks inside. The lady was so sweet and chipper and even said I could ring up my muffins at the Starbucks counter. Man, was today starting off good indeed.
Yet I sit here in my chair with a heavy heart this morning. Why? It's Good Friday, the day Jesus was carried to the cross and hammered to it as if he wasn't a human being. How is this a good day remembering that? I asked my kids all this week about Easter. What does Easter mean to them? After the initial "it's like Christmas" or "Is the Easter Bunny real" - I tried not to get pissed off that I hadn't taught them better. Walmart's Easter is candy, eggs, bunnies, gifts, more candy. Why should I expect them to think any different?. I do. I laid in bed with them one night explaining the true Easter story. Their little minds were actually listening so intently - except for the random being whacked by Laish's lizard he was holding on to. By the time I was done, and let me tell you, I did a freakin' fab job telling that story - Emma was clinging to me with her head buried and crying. What a tender heart she has. I found her asleep in her bed last night with her new Bible that her Grammy and Pop Pop just sent her from PA. I had this rawness in my chest that made me just lay there kissing her, annoying her slumber with my tears dripping down her cheeks. My only prayer is they know and love You, Jesus. May Your will be done.
I was listening to a speaker one time up in Detroit, Michigan at a Soaking Prayer Conference with my mom, and she said, "I find such comfort in the gruesomeness of the cross." Her words stuck with me for these many years. Why is that comforting? That He suffered so greatly? I am a 34 year old who has suffered most my life with daily chronic pain. Just that word "pain" brings tears to my eyes. We sing a song in church that says "there will be a day with no more pain..". Every time we sing that, I hold back tears and savor the moment of wondering what life might be like without daily pain. For this reason, His pain on this day is so hard to comprehend. It means so much to me that He felt physical pain for me. Pain I will never begin to know. The loneliness it brings - that no one else can know what you must be feeling. The thoughts of just wanting to die so you don't have to feel anymore. Then my mind comes back to my children and Aaron. I would suffer this pain every day until I die just to have my children live a life God fully intended. Is this possibly a bit of what He must've felt? Did His love for us, for me, just overwhelm His pain? I may never know what He went through so many years ago but I thank Him. I thank, you Jesus, for the cross. Thank You for the cross. I want to just lay at it now, all bloodstained and gruesome, and just cling to it, begging You to give me some hope for this shattered world. Sometimes I try to think of Easter as Spring and happiness because He rose again and we should celebrate this and yadda yadda yadda. This year, I'm ok with sitting in His presence at the tomb. Pouring ointment on His body and lovingly washing Him with my hair (or something else since I have little hair at this point). I want to touch His wounds and see the blood on my hands. I want to weep and just weep and weep in His bloodstained clothes. I want to be tired and hopeless next to Him, curled up so tight against His lifeless body that no one could tear me away.
"For it is by grace you have been saved. It is a gift." Ephesians 2:8&9
