the day between

there are seasons. and there are days.
this is a season of goodness for me.  a season when it's easy to be thankful. when i feel like my cup is overflowing with blessings. but there have been others when i was holding the pieces together, my pieces, while everything was trying to fall apart. 

this is a strange day.  the dark day between good friday and easter.  the day of absolute let down, the day of hopelessness, the day when a dream was gone, when belief was shattered.  a day when the people who followed Jesus questioned everything they'd been living for, questioned the small and the big, the 30,000 foot view.  they had no idea that easter was going to happen.  that on sunday morning the tomb would be empty, that their Lord had risen and returned. 

there are many who are in a season of saturdays.  many who today, right now, only feel the deep sadness of the day in between.  who are living in a place of hopelessness, a space of questioning everything they thought they knew to be right.  and this is a hard hard place to be, this is a hard day. 

how do we find peace in these days? especially when they last. for. so. long.  when they aren't just days, but months. 

how do we find peace when there is cancer? or illness of unknown cause that knocks us down again and again? or when our children are sick?  or when they aren't meeting their milestones? or when we don't have a job? or when we are just scared and maybe we don't even know why?

i remember when jude was a baby and we were dealing with his having hydrocephalus and a tumor, we always had his MRI scans on fridays.  that was the day allotted for pediatric imaging.  our appointment with the neurosurgeon was always on monday afternoon.  those were hard weekends.  those were days when i could feel the time, feel the space.  i would hope things were fine, but prepare for life changing news.  i would wonder if these days were really days to embrace ignorant bliss- days when there wasn't news of worsening pressure, or a growing tumor, days when i could just be with him.  sometimes i wanted those days to actually stretch into longer- so i could hold the unknown because sometimes the unknown is better.  the unknown is better than bad news.  in these times, sandwiched between a test and the results, there is waiting, there is in between, but there is an end.  like it or not, monday afternoon always arrived.

with zoe, our hard days, our hard seasons, they don't have a monday afternoon.  they are lived in the present, remembering the past, with no idea of what tomorrow or next year will be like. and this is harder. but this is what it is to be human.  we only know what is in today and yesterday.  we can't see tomorrow. 

i wonder what those 12 followers thought on that saturday long ago?  i wonder what they did?  did they hike up mountains and cry? did they write, did they go look for a job? did they meet together and complain? or did they wait. did they anticipate a good ending? a return? redemption? did they marvel at a God who was willing to fully experience humanity? who was willing to experience death? a God who loves us that deeply?  who gets us, who knows.

when it was so hard to wait for jude to come out of that giant magnet, to awake from anesthesia, cold and smelling like sterile, what i held onto was the knowledge that God experienced suffering, that she gets it, knows it, and holds me while i go through it.

the hope, for me, comes in the past and the promise.  there have been seasons of dark and stormy- but in some form the sun comes.  there will be more days of pain and deep sorrow, but i will remember they. do. end. eventually.  sometimes when life breaks us- we have to hold on to the pieces of goodness, small as they maybe, and not let go until the sun comes.  because it comes. 

we are not consumed.
the sea is parted.

we are not abandoned.
 our houses are passed over.

sunday happens. 
easter comes. 
today is just saturday.