The future felt bleak, I remembered. Many hopes I had, and then, it felt as though only a tomb remained, and that was empty. There was always encouragement, to ease things up, to make it look fine, to say everything was alright and would be OK because life is eternal. But when I honestly felt my disappointments and fears, I saw that all things die. All was lost. Everything came to an end. Everything ends. I have to face this fact or I would never really experience Easter. Even my best desires and efforts come to an end. Do not shield me from death. A grain must die, and be reduced to empty husk, for a new life to rise. What Jesus does is, promise us victory, over death. It is a promise that we will go through death, in its all forms, and only then find resurrection. I remembered the pain, the proximity, the very smell of death, the sour sweat of despair, I remembered it all. Anguish was me. Hopes were in ruins. Truly I did not hide. I felt it, I talked about it, I shared my misery. I asked for life. And so only amongst this wreckage of despair and death, I could see that death had no final triumph. Life, real life, goes through death. Life looks death in the eye, and gasps and weeps with the pain and futility. And then, a living person goes on.

I believe God has asked me to face something squarely: death. Most seriously, if I deny this fact of death, resurrection will be denied me. If I deny the death of myself, I would only know death. But if I face it, there is a future. Jesus came that I may have life and have it abundantly. I thought I was as good as dead. I was as good as dead no longer. I was dead. That’s why I was given new life, life in Christ.

posted by Graciana@Home at 3:49 pm