Easter for Me

[Easter of my childhood-source]

What does Easter mean to you? I meant to get this out on Easter, but it's been a busy week.  I grew up loving Easter mostly because of candy, the Easter Bunny, oh, and as a footnote, a celebration of Jesus.  It was just a fun day, and it showed we were close to summer, closer to freedom.  I imagine I wasn't alone in seeing it that way.  It always seemed like a fun, safe, holiday, not nearly as interesting as Christmas, but still passable.  Christmas, meanwhile, was a good day to remember Jesus, yes, but it was also the most fun time for food, family, and giving.  They were important to me, but I didn't have a clear vision of their purpose. 

[Color gone-source]

Just after I lost my baby, the days transformed.  Christmas, with its songs about babies and giving birth, became painful.  Easter became another day to remember when  I'd held my baby.  I watched the joy in everyone else and wondered where mine was.  They both became days when she should have been there, when a third child should have been reaching for the baskets and candy and eggs to dye.  They were days with big holes in the middle, black holes that sucked the life and color out of days around them.   

[The source of love and joy: source]

Since then, I have been making a study of what brings joy and peace.  And what I've learned is it all comes back to the healing hand of Jesus in my life and the lives of others, whether they're fully aware of it or not.  He is the source of all true peace, all true joy.  Joy is a shared happiness.  Our joy grows when we serve and love together.  Now, I see Christmas and Easter as two ends of the same glorious holiday.  They celebrate how He came into this world as a tiny, helpless little one, willing to grow up like the rest of us and willing to suffer our suffering, guilt, and agony, willing to die in pain, and then overcome death, pain, and sin for us, for each of you, for me, for you.  In these two holidays, we celebrate that our love and our life doesn't end here, that we can have joy in spite of our pain, and that we always have hope in the future.  Now, these days are truly days of shared joy, even when they're painful.  Because of these days, I will be with my angel Alli again and forever. Now that I understand them, these holidays mean so much more.