dreading easter

i was dreading easter weekend. 

after being ripped wide with the news of cancer on tuesday, the last thing i felt like thinking about were easter baskets and plastic eggs.

it just didn't register. nothing in my life felt very springy or pastel at the moment.  

it didn't feel like a holy week, it felt like a horrible week.

but thursday morning, somehow, i managed to wander numbly through the picked-over-aisles of target and place shiny trinkets in my cart. i wasn't even sure what those trinkets were. just stuff. stuff to stuff baskets and stuff to stuff empty eggs. stuff which suddenly had lost all of its intrigue. 

i tried to make lists of things we needed to do. things to get. things to buy. but nothing much made sense. i left the store quickly, drove home in anger and threw the bags forcefully in a closet.

friday dawned. Good Friday. grey and rainy. "perfect," i thought. "Lord, can i just stay in my pajamas and skip this day altogether?"  this was also the day we had to to tell tyler. he had been away all week on a school trip. but it was easter weekend and i had to tell my son that his mom had cancer. 

holiday? holy day? 

i don't think so.

i knew telling him was at the top of my to-do-list, but i wanted nothing more than to crumple up that list and throw it into the closet along with my target bags. 
pretend. pretend. pretend.

pretend that to-do-list belonged to someone else. 
pretend i didn't have a clue what all the fuss was about. 

pretend this cancer thing isn't real.
pretend. pretend. pretend.

instead the day passed and the time came and i headed out to meet his bus. 
instead i sat my son on a sofa and looked him in the eyes.  
instead i held his hand tightly and spilled out my awkward, frightening words.  
instead i watched my brave boy's face crumble.  

there was no pretending. not really. he was the last in our family to be told. and the telling hadn't gotten any easier.

we kept ourselves busy all weekend. attempted to keep things normal. even made a weak attempt at cheerful. saturday morning we had to make a decision over a piece of furniture at ikea. so we went. the kids and rick kept asking my opinion. it was everything i could do to hold back from yelling, "i don't really care."

now, had those words actually come spewing out of their mother's mouth, i am telling you my entire family would have fallen to the floor in great, writhing, heaps of fear ---
WHAT???
mom not care about a piece of furniture?  
are you kidding me? 
but mom loves furniture. 
she always cares about furniture.  
yes, that would have been it: i would have had all six of them crying violently on swedish sofas.  

so off i went again pretending to care mightily about the book-shelf-thingy we were purchasing for tyler's room. pretending that i really did prefer the brushed walnut finish to the ebony.

side note: while on the subject of furniture, i have to tell you what my funny friend, beverly, said to me last week. first of all, you need to know beverly was diagnosed with breast cancer one month before me. she had her major surgery the same week i was going through all the crazy diagnostic stuff. in fact, i was standing in her front yard when my doctor called to deliver the news that my tumor was malignant. (how's that for a little context? maybe some day this will all make sense).

anyway, she is just so funny. even in the midst of both of us pinned under this massive rock of cancer, she remains funny. she called me one morning after my diagnosis. and without even saying hello, she said to me, "you know, jody, this is a really good time to ask for new furniture."  seriously. she meant it. what husband is going to say no to his recently-cancer-diagnosed wife. 

i mean there isn't a whole lot to laugh about right now, but that was pretty funny.  

and as i roamed the enormous aisles at ikea on saturday i kind of played with the idea. flirted a little with plopping down on something new and wonderful and unncessary and pleading my need for the comfort of new furniture. i thought about it, but i have to tell you, i truly didn't care. that was just the place of my heart on that saturday morning. that place of in between. heartbroken and in need of healing. kind of numb. 

how strange to be at this place of numb on easter weekend. easter was about living and life and growth and birth.  i thought about how Jesus' disciples and followers and all of His marys must have felt on that day between the cross and the empty tomb. i realize they weren't thinking about swedish furniture, but surely they must have been somewhere, doing something to keep their hands and their minds and themselves busy. surely they must have stirring some kind of soup or sweeping a floor or slamming a hammer or washing someone's dusty feet. surely. their Lord was just taken from them. they had just watched their Jesus die a painful death upon a crude cross. the world went dark. completely. the earth trembled. violently. their Jesus was gone. they left their hope on a hill outside a city and it stayed there mixing with the very blood of their sinless, perfect, precious Jesus.  

how could this happen? how could God possibly be in it? 

so that was saturday. the day in between. the day of pretend. the day of keeping busy. the day of numb. 
the day of asking where-has-my-God-gone?  

by the time we had selected the furniture and jammed it into our overcrowded vehicle, i was done. we had plans to head to the horse farm and a movie and...and... and... and ... but i was done. 

i asked the family to drop me off at home. i couldn't keep going and keep pretending.

the numb was beginning to burn and the fear to creep back in. i could taste it. feel it. hear it coming. and i wanted only to climb back into bed. i knew i would need to get my act together that evening. i would need to dig out baskets and eggs and candies and clean shoes and all those trinkets in target bags thrown deep inside the closet. and i knew it would take everything left in me on this day. and there just wasn't much left.

sunday morning dawned. the sun was shining. at least it looked like a perfect easter. 

i was ready to put on my face of pretend. i was ready to step back into my shoes of numb. but somewhere along the way, somewhere within that morning, something changed. i am not really sure what. i wish i could tell you exactly when and how.

it might have been the morning sun peeking through my woods out back.

it might have been the sleeping children in their rooms upstairs.  

it may have been my morning devotion and coffee and a kiss from my husband. 

i certainly felt a trickle of joy when i watched bella line up all of the ceramic rabbits in an easter parade on our kitchen floor (didn't realize i had quite so many rabbits sitting around, by the way). 

i felt another deep prick of joy as i watched the children come rushing to the car as we headed off to church. 

they came beautiful. 

there was a day when i thought easter bonnets and white patent leather and a flouncy smocked dress was an important part of easter.  

things had changed.   
this easter was different.

i wasn't especially worried about their clothing choices this easter sunday. but i looked at their lovely, young faces and i was overwhelmed with their fresh beauty. their beauty even after such a painful week. even with the worry about their mama, they came with clear eyes and bright smiles and helping hands. it was all i could do to not sit and stare (weirdly) at them all the way to church. 

and then finally there was worship. 

and with the first note of the first song, i felt the numb begin to melt.  

i felt the cold clutch of fear begin to shake loose.   

i held bella in my arms and we sang together. i felt my throat open wide and my heart open wide and my hands open wide.  

wide open.  

i stood there in the midst of praise music and all of this jubilant easter celebration and i took hold of my Risen Savior. no, maybe He was taking hold of me. i am not sure,but i can tell you there was some mighty holding taking place.  

and suddenly it was easter…really easter. 

and it was blessed and i had great reason to celebrate.  all of this would be senseless and hopeless without A Risen Christ. but because He lives, no matter what--no matter cancer or any catastrophe--i, too, can live. 

i can face tomorrow. 
oh, friends, i know you've heard it a hundred times.
i know it sounds like a tired cliche.
like a worn thin platitude.
like just something we say on a holiday.

except that it's true. really true. 
because of what Jesus did at the cross, i can face tomorrow and whatever it brings: more information about my cancer. treatment options. the ugliness of disease. the fear of surgery. the fear of the unknown. all of it.

i am afraid that before this is all over i will know it at even a deeper...harder...stronger level.   just typing those words takes away my breath, because i know sometimes our Jesus reveals Himself in great pain and suffering. and i assure you, there is absolutely nothing in me which wants to travel that particular road.

but Jesus walked this road before me.
Jesus walked this road FOR ME.

The Cross and The Empty Tomb tell me so. and even though i walked into this easter weekend with great dread, i walked away holding on to a great gift. Jesus.

"but when they looked up, they saw that the stone,

which was very large, had been rolled away."  ~ mark 16:4