grumpiness, Good Friday, and an Easter epiphany

I paused for some Good Friday reflection this week. Mostly because the week leading up to Easter didn’t go how I imagined.

I had plans—good ones—to gather my family, to slow down, to really let the meaning of Holy Week sink into our hearts. After all, I’ve worked for years to gather meaningful Easter ideas for our family. But instead, life felt busy, scattered, and honestly, I was pretty grumpy about it.

Somewhere in the middle of all that, I found myself thinking about Good Friday in a whole new way.

When Easter Doesn’t Go as Planned

Try as I might, there was a domino effect going on over here that repelled any semblance of order to wrangle these kids together for two minutes to let Easter sink into our hearts.

Grace has been babysitting three darling girls, spilling into the house, spilling out again. Oh we have LOVED it: having our house filled up with those sweet little voices again, watching Grace as the sweetest little “mother hen”. Claire has been finalizing college decisions, talking to college coaches, making big decisions. And she’s deep into writing a joint essay with classmates on plastic pollution in the midst of things like powderpuff practices and mission call openings.

Both girls have been working on college orientations and trying to find college housing and available college classes. Lucy has been plugging away trying to learn The Giver on the piano. And also trying to keep up with her emotions (you can almost see that little heart mustering energy to wrap it’s way around life and where it is taking her). She’s had some big MCO practices with the concert coming up next weekend.

Dave has been in Utah for some work meetings (and soaking up Max & Abby up there), and Elle and Carson get to be in NYC with my brothers (celebrating their anniversary).

Of course, those big kids couldn’t be with us for Easter prep anyway, but I still want to wrap my mother-heart around them. Sometimes it feels like we are so spread out.

The Meaning of Good Friday in Real Life

All the while through my muddle of mothering, I have been scribbling down Easter notes. Trying to fit in all the events of Holy week into my heart, wracking my brain as to how to help infiltrate all this goodness into my children.

The Good News.

The passion of Christ.

The horror and exquisite pain of “Good Friday” interwoven into the exquisite joy of the resurrection.

The reminder of the last supper, the agony on the cross, the glory of new beginnings at that empty tomb.

I had grand plans that we would do our family “passover meal,” to make our devotionals more intentional, try to understand the significance of this Holy Week as our appreciation deepens.

And we did do some of that, in haphazard segments.

But I was grumpy that it wasn’t coming together the way I envisioned. I was frustrated we were too busy to make time for the most important things.

And mostly, I realized laying in bed discussing one night with Dave, I was sad time is marching on so relentlessly.

Letting Go of the Perfect Easter

But last night I realized (once again), that the Easter spirit doesn’t have to be some big plan scrawled out in notes after all. We were all coming from different directions to be together for Claire’s Patriarchal blessing and the spirit hit us all like a ton of bricks.

It was as if God was whispering calm to us.

And somehow in that whispering I realized this week doesn’t need to be prescribed.

It doesn’t even need to be focused on that Holy Week long ago (although I LOVE that).

Because isn’t Easter to remind us that He Lives?

“His hand is stretched out still.” (Isaiah)

He will find that one lost sheep.

Yes, there will be sorrows. Sometimes unspeakable ones.

But He is with us in those sorrows.

He is with us in our pain.

Christ Meets Us in the Middle of It All

He knows about breakups and heartbreaks and loneliness. He knows about hand-wringing worries and sleepless nights when the baby won’t stop crying. Jesus knows about insecurities and darkness and doubts. He even knows about the trivial things like how I had grand plans for Easter week that didn’t quite work out.

He wants to be invited into the mess with us.

Because He’s already gone there.

When He washed those disciple’s feet, we can imagine that He would wash ours too.

His agony in that Garden of Gethsemane — it was for us.

When he was lifeless on that cross, it was, again, for us.

The Pain Before The Glory

I love this last, gruesomely sad painting by Brian Kershisnik. I am perhaps even more endeared because of what he said about it in an interview:

“It is very hard for us now to read about the events surrounding Jesus’ torture and death without the pain of it being diluted by the universal spoiler alert of the fabulous conclusion of the gospel narrative. But they who went through it didn’t know it would turn out. Not just “ok”, but unspeakably gloriously. They labored over his lifeless body with no notion at all that this was going to work out well. Their hopes were dashed and there was nothing for it but to provide as appropriate a burial as could be arranged. There was sad work to be done and endured.

“This moment in the narrative is important because of the time we ourselves spend on the “Friday” of our experience with no notion of how the “Sunday” ever can break through it.”

Sunday Will Come

Sometimes we, just like those people mourning in that painting, don’t know (or can’t believe) that it will turn out. Whether “it” is pain or misery or discomfort or anger and hurt. We sometimes have a hard time believing it will all be “not just ‘ok,’ but unspeakably gloriously.”

But last night, in the midst of my family, together, we were reminded more poignantly than any devotional or Easter story I could give, that CHRIST LIVES.

He who was once dead:

…rose again.

Hallelujah.

I’ll leave you with this favorite Good Friday quote:

I think of how dark that Friday was when Christ was lifted up on the cross…
I think that of all the days since the beginning of this world’s history, that Friday was the darkest.
But the doom of that day did not endure.

The despair did not linger because on Sunday, the resurrected Lord burst the bonds of death, He ascended from the grave and appeared gloriously triumphant as the Savior of all mankind.

Each of us will have our own Fridays — those days when the universe itself seems shattered and the shards of our world littered about us in pieces. We all will experience those broken times when it seems we can never be put together again. We will have our Fridays.

But I testify to you in the name of the one who conquered death: Sunday will come.

–Joseph B. Wirthlin

Maybe that’s the quiet miracle of Good Friday. That even when life feels messy or incomplete or heavy, He is already there.

In the sorrow. In the questions. He’s there in the things that don’t turn out the way we hoped.

Yes, He’s there. Even in something seemingly as insignificant as a mother frustrated that Holy Week didn’t quite go the way she wished it would for her family.

Because of Him, Sunday will come.

Sending on over so much love to everyone I know who is wrapped up in their own “Fridays” with this reminder: Sunday will come.

Yes, Sunday will come.

Ideas to Make Easter Meaningful:

• How to make Holy Week more holy ideas
• My Offering for Lent this year
• An Easter screen-time challenge

Also, I put together a whole collection of meaningful Easter ideas and thoughts.