So God Made a Mother is Here! 🎉
I’m not sure I’m going to need a new Easter dress this year.
I ordered a bunch of candidates, but I don’t know if I’m going to keep any of them, not only because I’m not in love with them but, so much more, because I’m not sure I’m going to have an occasion to wear them.
In fact, I’m sure we all need it, maybe more than we’ve ever needed it at any other time in history, save one.
I’m not talking about needing the reopening of businesses, as President Trump recently put forth.
I’m not even talking about needing to be able to gather in sanctuaries together, though that surely is a longing of so many aching souls.
I’m talking about needing the pieces of Easter that are not in question, because they’ve already been answered. I’m talking about needing the details of Easter that are not TBD, because they’ve already been determined.
We desperately need Easter, no matter what it ends up looking like. If it looks different than other years, it will follow in good stead, because the first Easter also looked entirely unlike anyone expected it to.
Jesus’ followers expected that first Easter Sunday to look dark.
They expected it to reek of death.
They expected it to be shrouded in fear and uncertainty.
They expected it to be heavy with disappointment.
Close to 2,000 years later, we know about these things.
But that first Easter, eleven words changed everything.
These words and the truth behind them turned the expected on its heel.
Dark went to light.
Death went to life.
Fear went to hope.
Uncertainty went to blessed assurance.
Disappointment went to fulfillment.
Defeat went to victory.
We need these gifts and maybe we need them with an urgency we’ve never known before. These riches are ours to take hold of, held out to us by the Giver of every good gift, Who is not waiting around to see if Easter will happen this year.
No matter what we end up wearing or where we end up wearing it or who might be near us to compliment us on a new dress, this Easter can blow our expectations out of the water.
This is the only thing we need to know to look forward, full-on, to Easter this year.
Let’s give the anticipation its due. Let’s put more weight on what we know than what we don’t. Let’s wait with eager hope. Let’s look forward in confident expectation that our deepest needs will be met. And then let’s watch God do, again, the glorious unexpected.
While we were waiting to adopt, I would wake up in the middle of the night panicky. My mind would wander to the thought of suddenly having a baby. With groggy eyes and a cobwebbed mind, I would ask myself, “Could I get up right now to go soothe a crying baby?” And then the insecurities would flood me as I thought through the difficulty of dragging myself out of bed to give milk to a fussy newborn. I didn’t know if I could. With each application sent to agencies and social workers, the possibility of adopting a baby became more...
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Seated at the sunroom breakfast table, mouth full of Special K, I glance out the row of windows. A flutter of gray-blue against white paint catches my eye. I quickly swallow. “Y’all, a bird just went inside the bluebird house!” We all stand in a row, mimicking the windows. Yes, my sleepy morning eyes did not deceive me. Tail feathers were protruding from the circular opening. At last, a bird had found its way to this little white house with a tin roof nailed to a lone holly tree in the middle of our backyard. This was not the original...
My eyes flickered open and closed as I lay on the hospital bed after giving birth to my first-born daughter. The lights above me felt painfully bright as my eyes fought hard to stay open. Almost lifeless, my body had never felt so depleted. I lay there in a dream-like state, watching the world go on in full speed around me while inside I was in slow motion, barely strong enough to partake in the joy of bringing my daughter into the world. I had given every last ounce of myself, poured out until there was not much left. My...
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My sweet girl had a nightmare last week and now won’t be in her room for bedtime alone. She won’t fall asleep without me sitting in her room with her, and if she wakes up at night, she screams until we come to her. It’s hard because as much as I don’t want to see her scared, I know I can’t stay with her in her room forever. As I sat there wearily last night waiting for her to fall asleep, I suddenly realized that I wished I could be more like her. She knew that as long as I was...