Friday, April 14, 2017

Another Quiet Easter

It’s Easter weekend and as someone who was raised with specific traditions on this weekend, my mind can’t help but go back to those things that I looked forward to as a child. I was fortunate enough to be raised near both sets of grandparents, cousins, aunts, and uncles. SO, that naturally lent itself to LOTS of dinners and egg hunts following the Easter service at our church.
1984? Egg hunt after church , with Nanny & Papa

As an adult Easter has looked different, as I am miles from family. Some Easters I have been able to travel and be a part of church/egg hunts with my nieces OR I have been involved locally with kids either at a local church or just in my own classroom-where we celebrate spring and can sometimes sneak in an Easter egg.

Last year, the week of Easter. Maci and Chloe waiting with my at radiation.
This is the second spring/Easter that I have not been able to participate in traditional Easter activities. Last year, I was going through chemotherapy and radiation. I had been hospitalized right before Easter for an infection that they never figured out how I got, and it put me behind on my chemo schedule. It was a definite wake up call for what was actually going on in my body, as my doctors advised staying inside or wearing a mask when going out-and if I DID go to the grocery store, to bathe in sanitizer and take a shower and wash my clothes right when I got home. So….I opted to stay in most of the time.

This year, I am in recovery from a surgery that hopefully repaired a vesicovaginal fistula that was a result of a having a post radiation hysterectomy to get rid of remaining cancer. What that means is that this Easter will not be full with me traveling to see loved ones, going to church, participating in egg hunts, or even doing spring activities with my students at school.

It really is a matter of my heart. I remember last year having a lot of the same realizations, as I have been having this week-and asking myself some of the same questions. What does Easter look like without all the traditions? I love a good celebration with good food, drinks, and company! And being the good southerner that I am, I DO love traditions. BUT. What does it look like when those things are stripped away? What is left? Well, I’ll tell you what is left. You and your thoughts about the Truth. In the quietness of being at home, away from all the “excitement” of Easter, I find myself in many ways drawing closer to the One we celebrate.

I was reading a devotion yesterday and it said, “Jesus did not go on praying for the cup to pass. He went on praying for success in drinking it.” Wow. Y’all, the last two years of my life has felt like one crappy cup after another-with the ultimate crap cup of cancer. I have learned so much about myself and my faith on this journey. One of the things I feel like that keeps coming back and back and back is-sometimes God chooses not to heal-then what? Is He not good anymore? What if He chooses to heal but you have a freakin’ fistula the size of Texas and you need a muscle graft?

Back in January when I was working in Depends and waiting for surgery, I had another teacher kindly fumble around and say to me, “I am praying for your healing. I know that’s what you’re praying for...I mean, I guess, right? Well, I mean how can I pray for you right now? How are YOU praying about this situation?” I thought for a second. I responded, “You know what? It may sound strange. I have complete faith the God could heal me. However, I’m not going to pretend to know what He will do, after all that I have endured. I have watched good people suffer. I have watched people be healed. So I don’t know. Ultimately, yes I pray that He heals me, but more than that my prayer is for today. For right now. I just ask Him for strength to endure right now because the present is so hard.”

So yesterday, after reading: “Jesus did not go on praying for the cup to pass. He went on praying for success in drinking it,” I began to understand that Jesus really gets me in a way I had never sat with before. I felt His humanness. I have read that story a thousand times, and never had it made as much sense to me as it did yesterday. I know, that might sound silly or you might be thinking, “Uh, Holly He was about to be tortured and murdered-not the same.” And I KNOW it’s not the same thing. BUT there was something about going back and reading his fervent prayer in the garden, where He was praying so earnestly for the cup to pass, that He was sweating blood. To read Him asking again-and then to see Him get to a point of asking for strength because He KNEW what was about to happen. He knew there was no other way for redemption to happen, so He asked the Father to make Him strong, and His will be done.

Y’all, I have felt that way! Maybe you have too? I am not in any way trying to say that my life is like Jesus’ BUT I know what it’s like to cry out to God because you don’t want said thing to happen. Or pleading with Him because you are scared and know that it’s going to get really hard before it gets better…..then making that full circle of-this is where I am, this is what has to happen, so just make me strong as I drink from the cup before me.

I have been a believer for a very long time and never have I felt so much like He understands me, than I did yesterday. I always think more about Him being God, than being man. He was fully both and yesterday, I got that on a level that I never had before.

SO, while there is nothing wrong with all of the Easter events, new dresses, church services,  family dinners, egg hunts, etc. I just find my heart quietly celebrating that I have a God who understands me. I have a God who knows what it’s like to ask the Father for another way. I find comfort in the humanity of Christ. And encouragement that He too asked for strength to endure the hard.