Easter Post

I suppose that I am one of the few people who accidentally writes her own name when writing the word Easter and then has to go back and fix it (nearly every time). Such similar words! But, on with the post.

By the time I turned 18 I had been to 12 funerals. As of this date, I have been to 16. You know, I didn't realize this until I counted them all up and mentioned it to other people, but most my age have not known that many people who died. Some have known more. As the world grows darker and the horrors of war expand, many have known more. Death and sorrow are a major part of human existence. I sometimes think that I know this more than most, because I remember so much about the people who have gone out of my life. Some of them, like my aunt who died of cancer almost two years ago, I will see again (God willing). Others, I will most likely never see again. In some ways, it makes one feel special to know that those you knew are waiting for you on the other side. That some have made it through this trial that is life and come out in a place we can only begin to imagine with our finite minds. It is a comforting thought, that one that leads us to remember we will not always be without our loved ones.

But Jesus did not come to die so that we would not always be without the ones we care about. He came for such a different reason. And when I too enter the place He has prepared for me, it is not those I have known to go before me who I will be thinking of. I will think on God Himself, and all His infinite mercies. Sometimes, with my limited perspective, I forget that God's grace is the most important reality in my life. I forget that all this trying, striving and effort to live up to the laws of God should not be my focus. No, really, it shouldn't. The fact is that I can do nothing to make up for what God did for me. Suffering and dying is a human thing, yet Jesus suffered and died and then conquered death so that I would not have to face that human thing.

Easter is a time to put that into perspective. It is a time to focus once again on the awesome mercy that came down and walked among us. So once again, I take my eyes away from myself and my inner struggles and I remember that Jesus has already won the war, and I need not worry and fret anymore.

Those are my belated thoughts.