Easter

I am up. I wish I was sleeping, but I can't.  It's technically Easter right now, but really it's 12:30 and so it's the "eve of Easter" still too.  I am trying hard to wrap my thoughts around what I am feeling, thinking, wanting.

I've celebrated Easter every year for the past 30 years, and all of them as believer or within a believing family.  Yet, I don't "get" it.  I am not impacted in the way that I KNOW that I should be, and actually, the way I do desire to be.

I don't understand because I can't comprehend.  I've read the bible, heard the stories, seen the Passion of the Christ, listened to detailed explanations of medical teams explain the medical background of the crucifixion, but still I can't go there. I don't know pain like that. I don't know emotional trauma enough to have come close to sweating blood. I don't.  I am thankful I have never experienced anything of that sort, and no I am not asking for that.

I know what my Savior has done for me. I do know the gravity of what He willingly took on, but I don't understand. And I don't know that I would do the same, not willingly.

I believe everything I have read, heard and been educated on in reference to the crucifixion and the Garden.  I feel educated, but I feel I don't have a clue at the same time.

Why is it I feel so calloused to the cross? Why doesn't it affect me or impact me in a MAJOR way, because it was certainly a MAJOR sacrifice? I don't know why anyone would do half of what He did in order to save me, or anyone else for that matter?  I know it's because I am loved.  I know it's because he loves me. I know it's because He doesn't know how NOT to love me, or you.

The cross impacts me, but it should change me at every second.  But it doesn't. I go on in life and get distracted. I am just like the disciples who continued to fall asleep time and time again.  I fail Jesus. But He doesn't fail me. He could have bowed out. But he didn't.  He could have stayed in heaven at the right hand of the Father, but He didn't.  God could have come up with a different plan, but He chose to send His perfect Son.  (trust me I don't get that either, I am so far from perfect!)

The cross has changed me.   I am His and He calls me His.  I will forever live in eternity with God because of this sacrifice. I don't want to be calloused to the cross. I want to remember.  I want to have an intimate relationship with the Creator of the Universe, because He desires that of me.

How can I make it fresh? How can I make it new? How can I keep the Christ who IS alive, alive in me on a moment by moment basis so that I don't have to feel disconnected from what this holiday/remembrance is all about?

Lord, use this to continue to prod my heart. Give me a clean heart, a fresh heart. Take from me the hard heart, the calloused heart. Give me insight, wisdom and knowledge. Show yourself to me in new ways every day. Help me Lord to deny myself, to take up MY cross DAILY and to follow you with reckless abandon.  Break my heart for what breaks yours.  Remind me of all that you have done for me.  Thank you Lord for your grace, your continued second chances at this.  Thank you for your sacrifice, your pain, your separation from your Father so that I would NOT have to be.  Thank you for your nearness when I refuse to acknowledge it.  Thank you for loving me in a way that I am incapable of returning.  Help me to love better.  Thank you for not giving up on me.  I trust you Lord.  I love you.  Amen

What began at Christmas was completed on Easter...so thankful for Sunday.