Today was an ordinary day.

I weeded the flower bed I neglected all summer while watching my kids ride their bikes in the cul-de-sac.  I made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and cleaned up an entire roll of toilet paper the two-year-old claimed as his own.  I hauled this same two-year-old to a bath after he discovered a bottle of honey and decided his goldfish needed a lake to swim in.  I sprayed little hand prints off the glass and did a load of laundry. I answered phone calls and sent emails. I juggled work and home and school. I stopped a nose bleed. I disciplined. I yelled. I felt sick about it. I asked forgiveness. I snuggled. I counted my blessings. I encouraged. I reheated my morning tea this afternoon…It was an ordinary day.

And then there was disappointment. A longing I have was thwarted and that pain was like a single drop of black food coloring falling into a clean glass of pure water- and just like that everything changed. Everything was stained by disappointment.

I began trying to make sense of it all through the dark cloud of filth, trying to see through death and sin.  I felt sad about all the expectations and dreams that are yet to be fulfilled and then…I was grieving.  Just like that, I was grieving.  Hope unfulfilled can do that- drag us down to the room in our hearts where our deepest sadness resides.  The baby’s nap gave me the perfect space to lay down and begin drowning in all this.  But the baby woke up and the older children needed snacks and love and there was a choice to make- stay in the darkness and loneliness of despair or reach out and clutch the hand that is always reaching out to me in the dark…the one already damp from my tears.

Do you ever have days like this- days when your unfulfilled longings usher you out?

At some point in my wallowing, I began thinking about the moment Jesus woke up from death. I wish I could have been there!  I wish I could have been in that tomb!  I wish I could have seen Him sit up, stand up and shred the garments that bound Him to the finality of every other man. I wish I could have seen the look on His face- the victory, the joy!  Did He speak to the angels?  Did they speak to Him? Did the ground beneath his feet quake from the sheer magnitude of the greatest miracle ever bearing His weight on the earth? I wish I could have experienced the resurrection of Jesus!But then suddenly, my wishing gives way to revelation.

The tomb that I long to be in with Jesus- I am there.  In every moment of my life when my despair gives way to hope, He wakes up.  In every moment of my life when darkness is pierced with light, He stands up.  In every moment of my day when my sin is washed clean by His grace, the grave clothes fall, pooling at my feet and I am staring up into the face of the resurrected one and I am resurrected too.

Today I laid down in grief- laid down in hopelessness and despair.  I felt the earth and my citizenship here closing in on me. The hard dusty earth of a tomb outside of Jerusalem held my body and I ached with fallen world measures of sadness. But then, Jesus woke up and I added my grave clothes to His.  He smiled victory’s smile and I couldn’t help but to join in His joy.

Sadness, hopelessness, despair, the unknown, death- all of these- just a tomb awaiting a miracle, an end awaiting a Jesus kind of beginning.

Hope deferred led me to the greatest hope fulfilled.

And so…

Today was an extraordinary day.Thank you Jesus that you come alongside of us and offer resurrection power for every weak moment we endure in this world.  Thank you that you woke up from death and that you invite all who trust in you to join you in new life.  Thank you Jesus that ordinary becomes extraordinary, dark becomes light and death becomes life in and through you.  And all you ask is that we come.

Friends who grieve- friends who struggle- friends who stare through a dingy cup…

Come and join the extraordinary.  Open your eyes to see the tomb you lay in and the one who stands before you.

Resurrection is calling.