Up in the early hours.  Thinking about Easter.  It’s soon for that kind of thing, I know, but the warmth the past two days, the searching my heart, the pain and the purpose of it, points me to that hope and I love it so much.  Was a time when pain caused me to question God, shook my faith, made my knees shake in despair.  How could You?  How could You?  Something quiet has happened in my life the past three years.   Now when the tears fall, when people do hurtful things, when the unexpected happens, when the inevitable comes, I turn to Him safe.  I still cry.  I still get lost sometimes.  But He knows my name and He calls it.  And I always find my way back.  It’s okay now that I don’t understand.  I don’t strive to anymore.  I don’t need to.  I wouldn’t anyway, even if He told me.  Because I’d always do it differently.

I curl up on this Sunday morning and reach for the Jesus Storybook Bible.  I love how the author uses childlike terms to explain big thoughts; “Jesus went up into the bright air”, “He came to make sad come untrue.”  I turn out my light and smile into the dark.

“I don’t know where Jesus is,” Mary said urgently.  “I can’t find Him.”
But it was alright.  Jesus knew where she was.  And He had found her.
“Mary!”
Only one person said her name like that.”

He has said my name like that these days.  He has taught me to see the pain as level ground in this world that hurts us sometimes.  Even people that hurt us?  Don’t really mean to, if they could see past this murky veil we live behind. He’s teaching me what grace looks like.  Days sometimes make me long to leave this place.  But then He shows me a glimpse of it’s beauty and I gasp sorry that I almost missed it.

He gives me reasons to keep going.  Kaitlyn, Connor, Jamie, Amy, Naomi, Solomon, Caleb, Hannah, Noah, Rachael, Jeremy, Beatrice, Benjamin, E.T., Hannah and Madison, Julia, Erick, Melody, Rachel, Julie, Judy, Jonah, Shane, Emma, Jenna, Laurie, Tonya, Bill, Carley, Graham, Penelope, Katie, Tricia, Phoebe, Alan, Michael, Michele, Carrie, Bob, Neva, Terri, Heather, Shirley. Loretta, Dorothy, Tina……the faces go past my eyes endless as I close them and I picture the people.  We are here for each other, while we are here.  It’s all transitory, so fragile, so temporary, save the final goal.  The forever goal.

Carry things loosely, reach out quickly, use the currency of your life wisely.  Fix your eyes on the prize, whether through your tears or through the “bright air”.  It’s going to be alright, in the end.  He has told us so.