It’s Easter Sunday, a day I would normally be dressed in my finest and making sure my family look their best as we head off to church, my kids would have already searched for the baskets I would have hidden the night before, my husband would be telling us all to hurry to get in the car so we won’t be late, and yet here I sit in my sweat pants and a t-shirt on my favorite chair looking out the window to yards void of kids and families enjoying each other. We live in a strange time where we are all directed to stay home and social distance. On Facebook I see all the families trying their hardest to keep a certain degree of normalcy using zoom to bring family members into their celebration along with recordings of church services allowing us to worship with the hundreds around the country locked up tight in their homes and I wonder if this Easter we share the most common bond with the disciples of Christ we ever have. They too must have been locked in their homes wondering if it was safe to go outside, they too must have feared for their future and what tomorrow would bring, they must have sent prayers up to the father asking for him to help them understand and get through the heartache they were enduring. Only, we know what today brought. We know that on the third day the one they lost and were mourning would show up at their door and offer them relief from their fear and uncertainty.
Here I sit thinking of the days that led to Jesus being crucified and then raised from the dead and I am disappointed with myself. I think of the beating he endured for the love of God’s children and shake my head at how I have been angry at him for the bruises and scratches I have been dealt by the little ones I have brought into my home. I have myself cried out “Father, why have you forsaken me!?” only I have not had the faith and the heart to continue to carry the cross I have chosen to carry willingly and obediently. I sit even on this day with bruises and scratches from my daughters latest fit and I think about how I cried to my husband “I can’t do this anymore” I think of how my youngest son now lives with friends as he awaits to be accepted in a facility so many states away and how I have screamed at my Father “WHY!?! Where is the glory in this?” I have not fallen on my knees and agreed his will not mine, I have stood defiantly and cried out for him to give me a new cup, one that is not chipped and broken from all the times I have dropped it. I am ashamed at myself for looking at my very small bruises and scratches and crying to a Father, who watched his son be beaten so badly that his skin hung from his body, how it isn’t fair that I am so hurt by my children. My trauma children, who HAVE been beaten in the past and feel the need to show me their hurt and fear through anger and fits. Then I think about those scars on my Lord’s body, how they were healed on the day he arose, and how only the holes in his hands and feet were left to show that his scars bind us to him.
Those scars show us how our Father loves his children, how even when we rebel and act out in ways that are less than grateful for his love and provision, he is there to hold us and love us. His example of complete love tells me a story of hope and healing after the pain. Those scars tell a story of the pain he endured for us and shows us we were worth all he went through, all we put him through. I know that I will not just get over the hurt I have gone through in the last year or so. I know that my still fresh scars will not just heal up with my thoughts on this day and what it really represents, it will take time. I will pick up my chipped and broken cup, I will try to glue the pieces together, and carry on. I will look at 2020 and know that I have a hope in tomorrow because no matter what it brings I have a father that loves me and will carry me through it. I have scars, some healed and some not, but all tell a story of redemption and hope. I will get new scars and I will inevitably cry out again “why have you forsaken me” but the sun will continue to rise and I will be reminded that I am never forsaken and so I write……………..
soshewritesweb 