Let’s be honest. There are tears in the in between

Friday loomed dark and cold before us all week. We’d been preparing for weeks for the love coupled with the heartbreak that we’d find yet again in the bread and the cup at the cross of Christ. As much as we anticipated the joy of Easter Sunday, traveling through the heartbreak and despair of the weekend to get there, was never eagerly anticipated. We quieted our hearts, slipped into our solitude and reflected.

But we are not strangers to Good Friday. Our days leave us quaking in the heartbreak of unexpected loss, dreams not yet materialized, love unrequited, relationships broken, health uncertain.

Sunday dawned absolutely gorgeous, a golden sunrise promising hope and new life, connection and normalcy around the bend. Energy and laughter flooded through the house just like sun streamed through the sections of the hand-painted stain-glass window behind our dining room table. And we feasted together. We worshiped together. We played together. And we snuggled together. And our hearts filled once again.

But we are not strangers to Easter Sunday. Our days find us celebrating new life, promotions and weddings, family gatherings and friendships that are more precious than we could have imagined.

Saturday came with its usual household chores and business, heightened with a special birthday celebration. A squall of intense weather systems blew through the day. Cold and dreary, warm and sunny, temperamental and blustery; just like this Mama’s heart. As I dropped a birthday present on a friend’s deck and drove home, all those real emotions caught up in the whirlwind of business and duties erupted into my own squall of emotion.

But how is it we are strangers to the in between? We do our best to ignore the day in the calendar. It has no name, it’s not discussed, we gloss over it and do our best to avoid it. But our days can also find us hopeless, financially uncertain, alone, oh and worse than that even, terribly lonely. The in between is when we aren’t reeling from the loss, shocked by the separation, disappointed by our employment. No, the in-between is when we don’t know the outcome, we don’t see the way out, we can’t imagine how the relationship will be restored; all we can see is the squall, and we wait.

Let’s be honest. There are tears in the in between.

The disciples didn’t know that the heartbreak of Good Friday and the despair of Saturday, would break with hope in Easter Sunday’s dawn.

And so it is the same with us in this in between, this wait.

It is so very painful and so very essential, isn’t it? Isn’t the wait where we rediscover what matters most to us? Where we prioritize our relationships? Isn’t it where we realize and reach out to the ones we love?
Isn’t the wait where we search for Him?

Perhaps it is in the waiting that our tears teach us who we really are and who He really is. Maybe it is through our tears that we decide to make real what He’s taught us. Maybe it is what we will learn in the waiting that will lead us to experience the peace that He has for us tomorrow.

“Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again ‘Peace be with you’.”
~ John 20:20-21