When Sunday Comes

It's Easter Sunday. I've typically avoided traditional routines for the last few years. It was too much. And I had not been able to escape that hollow, empty feeling.  It's a strange thing being in the middle of a crowd yet feeling like you are all but invisible.  The crowds of people and yet still, I went home alone.  And somehow I couldn't escape it. Last year was the first year that something was changing in me.  I bought my girl and I new dresses and the boy, he dressed up too.  It was a Saturday night service we attended. And for the first time it felt solid. I felt ok. Something was changing.  The next day on Easter Sunday was the day God began pulling me through a new door.  I had no idea what that  next year would bring to me.  Let go....He was saying and oh how I tried.  This has been a year of huge change for me. Again, nothing left untouched in my world.  It's hard to find yourself again in a place of uncertain. Yet here I am. It's hard to find yourself in a place of new and uncharted, yet again, here I stand.  He's whispering again.....Let go... Shut it off, turn it down, lift your head and go.  Stop looking back. Yes....the hardness, the bitter root that comes when you look at it all face to face and question why.  I've done that a lot in the last few years. On the days where nothing made sense I asked again and again, for the love, why?? And there will always be the questions without answers. There will always be the things that will never make sense this side of heaven. And I see the silver strand of goodness laced through this journey. And I am amazed most days that He has turned all that into all this.  I think looking back so often bring the exhaustion.  Looking back at what was the past causes me to stumble going forward.  And this rain....days and days of this....holding me in a place I do not quite like. No not at all. Because the stillness sets in and I have to face things I perhaps would just rather run out instead of look at. If He removes it, then it was not needed. And open hands do not mean lack. The letting go provides the means to take hold of new.  Thankful.

Wash

It's Good Friday. I'm scrubbing floors. That's a good thing. I've been looking forward to the quiet and for the opportunity to make things clean again. The chance to slow down. To settle. It's overcast and rainy and everything feels hushed. It lets me think. Truly pause and open up my heart and let it all out. Tears mixed with warm soapy water. No one will notice. And I can just have a moment without trying to hold it all together like I sometimes do. I am overwhelmed with the mix of utter gratefulness this week has brought and the sting of regret mixed with sadness on some levels too....vinegar and water....all twined together. Four long years it has been. The death of things brought the birth of others. That is not lost on me. And the beauty that has come from all those ashes....things salvaged from the fire of what consumed my entire life.....it is never what I planned in my wildest dreams yet some of it was my dream. There is no joy without pain. Heartache means that we did love and makes loving all the more sweater. It softens our hearts and makes our responses kinder. It reminds us we are human and so is everyone else. It's is grace given when grace was heaped on our own heads more times than we can count, yes....today. And so I want to clean more that my floors. I want to let my heart have some time of its own to let it all out. The sadness, the regret, the bitter roots that have no place. And let Him wash it clean with the Living Water He brought to us this very day. It is a Good Friday. Thankful.