Hope in Jesus

It's Easter morning.

The small boys are up before the sun. They pull the bigger people out of bed. Then they hunt for eggs and search for baskets and root through the house. They're little- boy-wild.

I watch them run. Morning is a sliver of light through the curtains. There are rumpled heads and cold, bare feet and warm, soft pjs because the day is a newborn.

It's fresh and young.

And I watch my family. There's been struggle and strife and healing needs to come.

Life, these weeks, has been a trial.

It weighs on me, tugging, pulling, unwilling to set me free.

We scurry around the house. I lift eggs and bread from the oven. It will soon be time for church. But just when I'm moving through the motions, just when there's longing in my soul, a son pulls his guitar from beside the piano.

 And a song of praise fill our home.

There's the clatter of dishes and the voices of the children. There's work to do to get us all out the door.

But the music, the peace, the beauty washes over me. Somehow it fills the empty places. Somehow it shifts my focus and makes rough edges smooth. Somehow it directs my heart.

To Jesus.

 And He is Risen. He is Risen, indeed.

 

 

 

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My heart, bound up tight, uncurls. I can almost feel it in my chest. It's yielding.

It opens to celebrates the promise.

Life is real. There are real struggles and real hurts and real disappointments. Real mistakes. Real regrets. Real aches in the souls of those we love and we can't always be the balm.

But we have a real Savior.

And He is Risen.

And there is hope.

You've overcome death, Jesus. You've defeated evil. You've risen and You've brought victory.

I'll live on the resurrected side of Your cross, Lord.

I'll live where Your light shines.

The morning sun now stretches in stripes over the living room floor. It spills over our table, too. It fills our space.

Darkness scatters.

The boys need button-down shirts and black, Sunday shoes. They need shampoos and socks. And the house is a crazed mess of bright, plastic eggs and blue Easter grass.

Doesn't matter.

It's almost time to go worship, and I can't get there soon enough.

I want to join the celebration for the Risen King.

Jesus, You are Lord of all.