By JANET HART LEONARD
From the Hart
It’s Saturday of Easter weekend.
The day after Good Friday and the day before Easter. This week I was thinking about the significance of this day. It often gets lost in the sadness of the crucifixion of Christ on Friday and the joy of the Resurrection on Sunday.
I believe there is a sacredness to Saturday. I’ve lived through a few Saturdays. Let me explain.
When the worst of the “what ifs” happens, I find myself enduring a perpetual Saturday. Stuck in the abyss of a crisis with nothing but questions and pain that overwhelms everything I do. I wake up with it. I go about my day with it weighing on my mind. The pain tucks me into bed and the wrestling with the covers and my questions begins.
The crisis comes and I have no recourse but to just deal with it. My plans are waylaid.
The ending of my normal comes with a bitter jolt. While my normal was never easy, I had figured out how to endure the challenges of my normal. This new normal feels like I am crawling through tar.
The world and its normalcy keep going. Normal says I need to get over it. Normal says move on. The truth is, I feel stuck.
Where do I go from here? How do I handle this? So many questions. And of course, how long will my Saturday last? Truth is, I have no idea if and when my Sunday is coming.
My brain is trying to process the pain. The hollow ache in my heart seeks comfort. It takes so much energy to do even the most mundane tasks of my every day.
Grief, disappointment and the unfairness of life are cruel bedfellows. They nudge me awake after I finally have gotten to sleep.
Grief shouts and then whispers and then shouts again. Ugh. The pain of my hurt reminds me that I’ve been treated in a way I feel I don’t deserve. It’s usually by others but sometimes, it’s by God. I’ve been known to ask God why he allowed this to happen to me.
It’s Saturday. The pain is real. Tomorrow seems so far away. Eventually, I will wake up and it will be Sunday. On Sunday I will rejoice, but I don’t know that. Not yet, anyway.
I’m stuck in the abyss of Saturday. The day in the middle. I don’t have any idea about what Sunday (or my future) will look like.
I must sit in the pain of Saturday, the pain of an unknown future.
But…
If Easter and the resurrection of Christ have taught me anything, it is that I can endure my Saturdays, the days of living in the unknown, because Jesus arose from the tomb. Jesus endured the pain of the Crucifixion. He understands what it is to endure the will of God. He asked three times in the Garden of Gethsemane, “My Father, if it be possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.” Matthew 26:39 NIV
The day after the crucifixion, the disciples endured the hardest Saturday of all time. Then came the morning of the third day. The tomb was empty. We will forever know the hope of Easter. Oh, how I cling to hope in the darkest hours of my Saturdays.
So even when God doesn’t answer my prayers as I want Him to, I know He will never leave me. He will walk the hard journey with me. Eventually, there will be a Sunday in my life. There will be joy … eventually.
Easter has taught me that as I dwell in the sacredness of my Saturdays, I can know without a shadow of a doubt … Sunday’s coming. There will always be hope in the middle of my Saturdays.
Good Friday. Sacred Saturday. And oh, the joy of Sunday!
Blessings to all my readers this Easter Sunday!
Janet Hart Leonard can be contacted at janethartleonard@gmail.com or followed on Facebook (@janet.hartbaker) or Instagram (@janethartleonard). Visit janethartleonard.com.