Resurrecting Easter: A Three Part Series

Part Three: Just Keep Breathing

This is the third part of my Easter Trilogy, but I cannot tie up all the loose ends. There is no box with a bow, no “happily ever after” as of yet. I have not come to the end of my Easter story. But that’s probably because I am still breathing. God is not finished with the path I have to walk. So I keep walking. And I keep singing, for praise is a powerful weapon against the darkness and the unknown.

And I keep breathing. I have several friends who have a “word of the year” for 2018. These are words like “Inspire,” “Grow,” “Flourish,” and so forth. My word for the year? “Breathe.” Just keep breathing. Because some days that’s all I have the strength to do…take it one breathe at a time.

With that in mind, with this post I will follow in the path of many great writers. When you don’t know what to say, steal someone else’s words. But it’s not stealing, really, if you give credit where credit is due. So, thank you, J.R.R. Tolkien, for being so inspiring, and for writing this wonderful little conversation about the stories that really mattered.

“Yes, that’s so,” said Sam. “And we shouldn’t be here at all, if we’d known more about it before we started. But I suppose it’s often that way. The brave things in the old tales and songs, Mr. Frodo: adventures, as I used to call them. I used to think that there were things the wonderful folk of the stories went out and looked for, because they wanted them, because they were exciting and life was a bit dull, a kind of a sport, as you might say. But that’s not the way of it with the tales that really mattered, or the ones that stay in the mind. Folk seem to have been just landed in them usually—their paths were laid that way, as you put it. But I expect they had lots of chances, like us, of turning back, only they didn’t. And if they had, we shouldn’t know, because they’d have been forgotten. We hear about those as just went on—and not all to a good end, mind you; at least not to what folk inside a story and not outside it call a good end. You know, coming home, and finding things all right, though not quite the same—like old Mr. Bilbo. But those aren’t always the best tales to hear, though they may be the best tales to get landed in! I wonder what sort of a tale we’ve fallen into?”

“I wonder,” said Frodo. “But I don’t know. And that’s the way of a real tale. Take any one that you’re fond of. You may know, or guess, what kind of tale it is, happy-ending or sad-ending,

but the people in it don’t know. And you don’t want them to.” (JRR Tolkien, The Two Towers)

These words brings me back to the first Resurrection weekend. The disciples didn’t know, on that Friday night or that Saturday, what Sunday would bring. We look back knowing The Rest Of The Story and think them foolish because Jesus had told them multiple times that he was going to die and then come back to life. But Jesus had said a lot of things in parables, in stories, about fig trees and pearls of great price and wedding feasts with bridegrooms and virgins and lamps…and despite all this the disciples were completely clueless, for they were in the middle of their story. They had watched their leader, their rabbi, the head of their little tribe, be executed in the most brutal way the Roman empire could imagine. No one had ever come back from being crucified. Was this just another one of His parables? How could this possibly end well? In the middle of the story, they did not know, they could not know. So perhaps we can look on their fear and trembling with some grace.

I know, today, that Jesus did indeed rise from the dead, that He is now seated at the right hand of God.

I know that Frodo and Sam make it to Mount Doom, complete their mission, and then make it home again (I’m not even sorry if I spoiled it for you…the story is 80 years old, it’s not my fault if you haven’t read it or seen the movies yet.)

What I don’t know is what is going to happen tomorrow. Or next week. Or next Easter. I am still in the middle of my story. God does not give me more than a few pages of the story at a time. I see it unfold as it happens. But I can have faith that it will unfold, for God is the Author and Finisher of my story.

Is it easy to keep walking through uncertain, troubling times? Of course not. But we have such treasures of hope in the Scriptures! We know from Isaiah 25:8 that God will “swallow up death for all time, And the Lord GOD will wipe tears away from all faces.” Do we feel the sting and pain of death and loss today? Yes…yes we absolutely do. But we walk in glorious faith, knowing that Jesus, “for the joy set before Him, endured the cross and is now at the right hand of God.” (Hebrews 12:2). 

And so, until I come to the end of my story, I must keep believing that God will see me through. I keep walking. I keep singing. And. I. Just. Keep. Breathing.

Resurrecting Easter: A Three Part Series

Part Two: The Agony Of Defeat

Easter of 2010 was glorious. I had successfully given up chocolate for Lent and had subbed as the sound tech at the military chapel in Italy. Sunrise service came and went with glorious song. It was perfect. My last wonderful Easter.

Christmas of 2010 was pretty fantastic too…we got to go home for Christmas and see my family, including my grandmother (my mom’s mom), who my kids called “GG” because she refused to admit that she was actually old enough to be a “Great Grandmother.” But then GG got sick, and didn’t improve.

Plans for the spring were made with a backdoor, a “what if,” a “just in case.” Any hotel reservations I made for Spring Break had to be cancelable at the  last minute with no fee. I mean, we get used to doing this anyway with the Army, but this was just another time to be making very tentative plans. Then my husband had to go away to school in Arizona, so all those four-person plans became three-person plans and I needed a child care backup because last-minute flights to America ain’t cheap. 

On the Thursday before Easter, Maundy Thursday, I got the call that GG had passed away. I raced home and packed up the kids, packed up myself, and bought ridiculously expensive plane tickets. Dad told me not to come, but there was no way I was NOT going to be there. I spent Good Friday on a plane, on a trip that lasted forever. Easter Sunday was surreal that year, in a borrowed dress because the airline lost my luggage, surrounded by sisters and parents and nieces and nephews but SO ALONE without my own little family. I said at the time that it was the worst Easter ever. 

The next Easter was the last we would spend in Italy. It was a beautiful day, but had its own bittersweetness to it, as all “lasts” will. The cover photo on my Facebook page was taken on that day. I can’t bear to change it. The triumph of the cross, in the face of a death that is now tied to a holiday, is something I cling to even 7 years later.

Easter of 2013 found us in America, in Clarksville, Tennessee. This was not a good year for us. Moving back to the states, with the “reverse culture shock,” had been very difficult and I was sick most of the time. Add to this that my husband was gone for about half of our time there..including Easter. That year the holiday fell on Spring Break and the kids and I drove down to “the farm” to spend time with my husband’s family. When we got there, we found that Grandma Faye was very ill and not expected to recover. I don’t remember much about that week except for two phone conversations. I called my Aunt crying, “I don’t want to lose another Grandmother on Easter, I’ve done this already and I don’t want to do it again.” The other was with my husband, as we tried to decide when to head back to Tennessee or to stay for the funeral, should Grandma Faye pass while we were there. “What do you want to do?” he asked. “I want to stay in New Braunfels forever and not go back to Tennessee,” I bawled. But go back we did. We left Texas on Saturday and drove for two days to get home. That was probably the first time in my life that I was not in church on Easter Sunday. We got home and heard that Grandma Fay had passed on Easter Sunday afternoon.

Easter was losing “treasured holiday” status as fast as it had been gained.

We got out of the Army in November of 2013 and limped back to “the farm” to lick our wounds and determine what civilian life would look like. Eventually we found a house of our own, a church of our own, and several Easters passed without incident. There was still a heaviness that surrounded the holiday. Joy was there in full force because Christ is Risen! He is Risen Indeed! But the holiday remained a reminder of loss. Slowly, though, one Easter at a time, it became easier to handle.

Until March 29, 2017, when a bus crash killed 13 members of our church, two and a half weeks before Easter. I am not going to dwell on that night because I have written about it before (here and also here). That Easter was a Sunday like no other. I experienced the power of song in ways that I had not before. My broken soul wept and rejoiced at the same time, for even though we do walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, we fear no evil, for we know the Lord is with us and He is triumphant.

Easter this year is on April 1. Just two days after the anniversary of the bus accident. I have been dreading it for months. So many hurts tied up in one holiday, and each pain seems to amplify the other. I find myself walking a dark road emotionally at this time, going through unrelated struggles greater than any I have faced before. It’s hard. It’s stupid hard. I know that God will see me through, every step of the way. But that doesn’t make the way easier.

Resurrecting Easter: A Three Part Series

Part One: In The Beginning

Christmas is my FAVORITE holiday. Bells. Lights. Snow. (Well...in Texas...we can pretend.) Cookies. Special movies. THE BEST MUSIC. Everything about Christmas makes me giddy, bouncing on my toes, clapping my hands and squealing like a little girl. Easter…Easter is different.

Easter was a joyous holiday when I was a child. Baskets. Bunnies. Bonnets. New matching dresses each year that Mom usually made for her three little blonde girls. White shoes (finally!). Christ the Lord is Risen Today! Haaaaaaaaaa-le-lu-ia! It was a day to look forward to every year for many reasons. 

Resurrection Sunday is a holy day, a day to celebrate for sure. But growing up Baptist I had no lead up to Easter, not really. It just…was…one Sunday, sudden and unpredictable date-wise, although different from other Sundays. I had Catholic friends in high school and they suddenly ate fish on Fridays (I resolved every year to give up broccoli for Lent but Mom would have none of it.) But other than that, for me, Easter…just…happened.

It wasn’t until we moved to New Braunfels that Easter gained real meaning. Our pastor preached one Sunday that “Christmas is Easter, Part One; and Easter is Christmas, Part Two.” Suddenly the two church holidays were connected in a new way. Bookends, if you will. I began looking for, and finding, connections between the two days. Many Christmas carols point to the cross. Bethlehem would always lead to Calvary. I paid more attention, sort of, to the days leading up to Easter. But for Texas Baptist Laura, Easter was still a day that snuck up on me with that silly moveable date habit that it has. It had a special holiness, especially with the connection to Christmas, but it still…just…happened. Until we moved to Italy.

Moving to a foreign country changes the way you see the world. Moving to Catholic Country also changed the way I saw the calendar. I attended a Bible Study on post with friends of many different denominations…Methodist, Lutheran, Episcopal, Presbyterian, and I even became friends with a few Catholics. There were banners hanging in the chapel that were changed every so often, and one day I finally asked someone why they were changed and what the different colors meant. I learned about the concept of the Liturgical Calendar, with Lent and Advent and Ordinary Time. The organization of the thing was fascinating and new, and added pieces to the puzzle of the connection between Christmas and Easter. 

For those of you unfamiliar with the Liturgical Calendar, it goes a like this: Advent is the beginning, the four weeks before Christmas. The “Christmas Season” is actually the 12 days from December 25 to January 6 which is Epiphany, traditionally the day the Wise Men arrived in Bethlehem to see the Christ Child. After this there is a small period of Ordinary Time, the lull between Christmas and Lent. Many cultures celebrate Carnivale, or Mardi Gras, right before the beginning of Lent, which is the 6 weeks leading up to Easter. Lent begins with Ash Wednesday. Then we have Passion Sunday, or Palm Sunday, which is the Sunday before Easter. (This is the point in the year in which all the Baptists go, wait, Easter is NEXT SUNDAY?) Then there is Passion Week, which includes Maundy Thursday (the night Jesus partook of the Last Supper), Good Friday, and then Easter Sunday. The Easter Season is the 6 weeks after this, ending with Pentecost. Then we are in Ordinary Time for the next several months. The banners in the chapel were purple for Advent and Lent, red for Passion week, white for Easter Sunday, purple for Easter Season (I think) and then green for Ordinary Time.

During our 7 years in Italy we celebrated many Easters at the chapel, including several Sunrise Services. The most blessed Easter season for me was the year I subbed as the sound tech.

This was also the year I had given up chocolate for Lent. The first week of that experiment was miserable…chocolate was EVERYWHERE and unavoidable. But the longer I went without it, the less I missed it, and I found myself walking down the candy aisle of the commissary thinking “If Jesus endured 6 hours on the cross and three days in the tomb, I can go 6 weeks without chocolate.” Somehow this first “giving up” made the Passion more real still, as it was something I was doing intentionally with a specific reminder that Jesus Died For Me. 

Each night of Holy Week I was at the chapel early in the evening, helping Father Mike set up for service and making sure everything was in working order. I was allowed to join in with the walking of the Stations of the Cross, something else I had never done before. Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, even Midnight Mass, I was there, celebrating the Passion of the Christ with my fellow believers. I remember the exhilaration of being able to eat a piece of chocolate cake at the fellowship after Midnight Mass. Lent was over, after all…it was Easter Sunday even if it was only 12:30 in the morning. A few hours later the pianist (who had also been there every evening) and I greeted each other with exhausted waves at the Sunrise Service. Christ the Lord is risen today. Haaaaa-le-lu-ia! 

It was a beautiful service, that Easter morning of 2010. It was my last truly wonderful Easter.