Three Days After Easter

Today is Wednesday.  It's three days after Easter.  Three days since I stood in a crowded room full of people singing songs of praise about an empty tomb and a risen Savior.

Do the last three days feel like a month to anyone else?

It just feels like there is chaos everywhere.  I'm grieving with friends over loss and helping family members fight battles over serious illnesses.  My son has had a week full of major behavior problems that I was thinking we had started to move past.  My best friend has four kids - all with strep throat.  My husband is traveling for work and ended up at Urgent Care after falling down.  He now has seven stitches and what is destined to be a pretty fantastic scar on his elbow.  Co-workers are reorganizing their lives after family tragedies.  Emotions are high.  Energy is low.

Most of these problems were there before Easter, but I don't think I was as sensitive to them.  Maybe because the last two years have been such constant chaos?  Or maybe it's because there's a spiritual battle going on and the enemy wants me to focus on my problems instead of on the empty tomb and so he's made those problems louder.

I have no perfect answers for life's struggles and I have no cute anecdotes to tie this all up with a bow.  What I do have is a body that is weary, a husband who is injured, a son whose emotions war within him in such a way that his two-year-old brain just turns to screaming mush.  I have a grandfather losing the fight against Parkinson's disease.  I have a dad facing major surgery.  I have a mother trying to maintain her sanity while caring for us all.  But I also have the knowledge that the tomb was empty.

The tomb was empty.  

Ann Voskamp wrote a stunningly beautiful blog post this week called The Truth You've Got To Know About After Easter.  You should take the time to read it and savor her words and pictures in their entirety.  But one quote jumped out at me like a flashing neon sign:

They say that the most hilarious line in the Bible is Pilate speaking about Jesus’ tomb: “Go, make it as secure as you can.“  Good luck with that.  Because the thing is:  We now get to live secure through family messes and wearying trials and bloody places because nothing could secure that tomb.  We can live secure through anything now because nothing could secure that tomb.

We can live secure through anything now because nothing could secure that tomb.

So if you're fighting like I am can we just all take a deep collective breath together?  Can we lay our burdens down at the foot of the cross?  And can we smile in the knowledge that God restores shattered dreams and completes the impossible?

I've stared at this screen for 15 minutes trying to find a way to wrap this up, and now I'm struck with the realization that this doesn't get wrapped up.  It just stands on its own.  So I'm just going to try to let this ring in my ears throughout the night and the upcoming days that promise more chaos.

We can live secure through anything now because nothing could secure that tomb.