The Great Pause

Today is Resurrection Sunday and I am here in my house, writing and reading and sipping coffee while the rest of my family sleeps. I love these quiet times, especially now, when there is no where to go to get alone. For over a year I have been reading a devotional on grief. I finished the last page today. Just over two years ago, right about now I was traveling with my husband and daughter to attend the first memorial service for my son in law. The month before that we held services for my father in law, and a few months later I would fly to California to bury my own dad. I felt like I had tripped but just kept falling, or like in a movie when the main character stops moving but the rest of the scene just keeps moving around them in high speed. Life kept going, but I didn't. It seemed like I did, but I was simply going through the motions.

Up until these moments, Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection had been so much more than a great story to me, but I must admit, I could not understand the depth of loss that the disciples felt. Walking through a dim life, making do and trying to figure out what next when everything had been changed in a single moment.

I don't find it insignificant that right now as the whole world is hunkering down in their homes, as we as a church are having to find unique ways of celebrating the Resurrection, we are actually doing what the disciples did so many years ago. Waiting it out and talking about what life is going to look like now. But this morning we wake up and remember He is Risen! What an amazing scene to have witnessed, running at break neck speed to the tomb and finding it empty! Can we dare to hope?

As we are forced to look at things from a different perspective, find new ways to accomplish what we used to do easily, don't get so lost in your new form of distraction and miss the hope and beauty that is right in front of you if you would only stop to look around. Allow this pause in life as we know it to create something new in your heart.