How blessed are we to begin a day walking in the dawn of early morning, plump droplets of dew hanging precariously off the tips of the Azalia bushes and neighbors passing to the left calling out, “Happy Easter!”?
Let’s pray it stays this free.
Despite the swelling joy of recognizing my untethered freedom (not just in a political/religious sense but in a spiritual realm as well) I focused early on in the morning on what a ‘resurrected joy’ entailed. I was reading a daily prayer book and it stated to allow Christ to ‘resurrect’ within you. To find the ‘resurrected joy’ in our daily life. I thought how appropriate a statement for me and my particular journey. Being that I ‘re-surrendered’ to Christ that of course I should recognize true joy resurrected as well.
Then I spoke to a dear a friend whom lost her husband almost exactly two years ago to a tragic car accident. We called him Mr. Bob. He was my son, Ryan’s, piano teacher. Ryan was his first student since they moved to Texas and Ryan was only 4 years old with ADHD and Impulsivity Disorder. Probably not the ideal student to take on but I know God brought Mr. Bob to us because I had prayed for him. I needed an outlet for Ryan and someone to ‘get’ him. And out of nowhere came Mr. Bob. For five years Mr. Bob taught Ryan weekly throughout the entire year, including summers. Ryan soared through the lessons (and when he did have his ‘episodes’ Mr. Bob handled it with perfection…often when Ryan had issues at school I would ask Mr. Bob to talk to him about those as well. He had the ‘touch’ with Ryan.) Needless to say, Ryan was devastated with Mr. Bob’s passing. What surprised me was my devastation with his passing. I’ve lived through so much death in my relatively short life, the loss of my first love, five other friends to accidents and suicide between high school and college, family members, and even now a dear young woman from my youth group. Sadly funerals became route for me. All the things people say because they have no idea what to say were often heard like the teacher from the Peanuts comic strip (wha wha wha wha wha wha wah….) but I’d smile because I knew they didn’t know what to say. My heart knew it was me that I was sad for and not the one lost.
But then we lost Mr. Bob and the tears couldn’t stop. This was someone that affected my child’s life. That has the possibility of affecting the direction of his life. And now he was gone. It was one of those ‘I know I can handle it, but can Ryan?’ Funny thing is, Ryan misses Mr. Bob but he’s handling it, and I’m still brought to selfish tears when I think about where Ryan could be in piano, or how Mr. Bob could have helped him in this situation or that situation. And to think about his sweet wife who was his soul mate (and I know you are reading this and I’m sorry if this brings you hurt and pain but I need to write my point out)…and his sweet son whom they had just adopted one year before the accident.
Senseless.
But isn’t it all senseless? This world?
God didn’t create us to live in this senseless world. He created Adam and Eve to know the joy of heaven throughout their life. To live heaven on earth. But pride and jealousy ruined God’s great angel, Lucifer, and Lucifer couldn’t stand that God would give this love and freedom to such creatures. And thus we were tricked and this world could have easily become truly senseless until Christ came to bring us back into God’s original plan. To live life eternal with Him in heaven.
God began with giving us Pure Joy…but his greatest gift caused us to turn it away. But “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16) He gave us another try. He gave us resurrected joy.
We will never understand the ‘why’s’ to our losses and sufferings and we’ll always wish we could feel the resurrected joy immediately but just remember that this life on earth is the consumption of a bread morsel compared to the loaf of bread we’ll receive in heaven.
(slathered with garlic and real butter!) 🙂
Blessings
Shannon