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\u00a0And he said, \u201cThe Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.\u201d Luke 9:22 NIV<\/em><\/p>\n I didn\u2019t plan to read this passage for Good Friday but don\u2019t you think it\u2019s fitting?\u00a0 Christs\u2019 sacrifice is worthy of being remembered any time of year but this verse seemed to take on a new life this morning as I watched the lovely face of spring from my front porch. Birds were everywhere, the grass is turning green again, the sky was a beautiful robin egg blue and I could have just stayed there all day.\u00a0 Alas, too many errands to run and a child to say goodbye to at the end of spring break.\u00a0 So, I had to get on with my day.<\/p>\n However, this verse kept rolling around in my head.\u00a0 Not only because I was reminded of the love of my Savior and His unfathomable grace towards me, but because I realized how easily I become stuck in life.\u00a0 Suddenly, Philippians popped in my head.<\/p>\n \u201c\u2026that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.\u201d Philippians 3:10 NIV<\/em><\/p>\n And I realized what I\u2019d been missing lately.<\/p>\n Hope.<\/p>\n Isn\u2019t that what Easter is all about?\u00a0 Hope?<\/p>\n I realized one reason that I love gardening so much and why I\u2019ve been in the dirt as much as possible lately.\u00a0 Sure, I love the smell of broken soil, the beauty of buds popping up around the yard and the feel of the sun on my face; but, the real joy is the hope and expectation of what might come.\u00a0 Of the possibilities that lie in the work I do.\u00a0 Of seeing life growing out of what was dead.<\/p>\n But satan loves to steal our hope and I, for one, am all too willing to hand it over.<\/p>\n I often forget how much suffering and rejection Jesus had to bear.\u00a0 Judgement from his family, betrayal and loss of friends, rejection from the people he wanted to help, false accusations, attacks on his character and (I think the hardest to bear) loneliness. I\u2019m so grateful that He understands those very things that have broken me because I need someone to just let me cry when it becomes too much to bear. Sharing in his sufferings comes all too easy but honestly, my sufferings are nothing compared to those of the persecuted around the world.\u00a0 They truly know and understand the idea of sharing in Christ\u2019s suffering.\u00a0 Regardless, Jesus doesn\u2019t discount my sufferings and He cares.\u00a0 He also knows that I suffer pretty well. Too well to be honest.<\/p>\n It\u2019s easy to find ourselves stuck in pain and hopelessness, isn\u2019t it? But that isn\u2019t the end of our call as Christians.\u00a0 Christ affirms the truth that we will suffer but He calls us on to more.<\/p>\n He calls us to death.<\/p>\n Yep. And you thought I was going to say resurrection didn\u2019t you?<\/p>\n We can\u2019t experience the power of Christ\u2019s resurrection without submitting to the pain of death. There\u2019s a progression here and I can\u2019t skip the steps that I don\u2019t like.\u00a0 Making my own little comfy place in the middle of suffering may not be fun but it is easy and we can find satisfaction there.\u00a0 But we won\u2019t know the joy and power and hope of Christ\u2019s resurrection in our lives if we don\u2019t pick ourselves and our pain up off the floor and voluntarily place it on the altar with the intention of dying to it all.<\/p>\n Dying to the hurt, the offense, the loneliness, the pain, the loss\u2026.<\/p>\n Dying so that we can be free of the hold it has on us.\u00a0\u00a0 We have to die so Christ can help us live.<\/p>\n We have to trust and hope no matter how hopeless the situation seems.\u00a0 We do that because we know the beauty of Easter.<\/p>\n That God still raises things from the dead.<\/p>\n In His own time and in His own way.<\/p>\n He breaths life back into His people.<\/p>\n Like a beautiful Paper white blooming In January when all else is cold and hard He will send a sign of life. Maybe a conversation or a feeling.\u00a0 A laugh when you\u2019d forgotten that you could.\u00a0 A card or a song that lifts your heart. He will bring life to us if we can just trust and believe.<\/p>\n If we can just keep breathing.<\/p>\n If we will remember to hope in the beauty of Easter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0And he said, \u201cThe Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.\u201d Luke 9:22 NIV I didn\u2019t plan to read this passage for Good Friday but don\u2019t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":577,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,5],"tags":[58,80,159,182,224,238,274,331,468],"class_list":["post-573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-faith","category-just-some-thoughts","tag-breath","tag-christ","tag-easter","tag-faith","tag-gardening","tag-good-friday","tag-hope","tag-life","tag-resurrection"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/karenlawson.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/karenlawson.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/karenlawson.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karenlawson.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karenlawson.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=573"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/karenlawson.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karenlawson.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/577"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/karenlawson.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karenlawson.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karenlawson.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}