Easter and Happy Endings

I love Easter.  I love the whole reflective Lenten season that anticipates  the big celebration.  I love sunny spring weather.  I love the songs.  I love the prettiness. I love the chocolate.  I love the Story, the redemption, the happiness of it all. (We have already established I have a huge thing for happy endings, right? )    And I was particularly psyched for the past weekend's festivities. I was ready.

The past few months have been fast and furious.   Life abounds; full of craziness, going and going,We have been brimming with  everyday trials.  I was looking forward to the feast of hope.  I needed to see the paramount of happy endings again.

 I had awesome Children's Church and Sunday School planned.  Easter sermon was ready. Family dinner was set. I made John's favorite dessert, sugar free no less.  I had a gazillian eggs (of three varieties) hand stuffed and hand decorated.  We even managed to find a little extra in the budget and bought the boys new church clothes  Every detail seemed set.   Easter was coming soon, and I was ready.

And then, John lost his sermon notes. Okay, no biggie.  ADHD a busy house with four curious kids.  It happens. Simple rewrite... better sermon.  God is Good.  Then Ian found the egg stash.  He  decimated it--pre-hunt. So, I put them back together after the kids went to bed. I can put up with  hand cramps induced by the repetitive motion of opening and closing those little plastic eggs, as long as the celebration in salvaged.  God is good.

 And then, came the retching.  Sickness ran rampant through the house.  No one wanted to move.  Traffic backed up for the bathrooms. Children cried.  Parents grouched. Children grouched.  Parents cried.  At first, I didn't want to believe it.   This would all just have to go away by morning.  God is good! And, Easter  was coming! (Now just a few short hours away.)  What would become of the celebration?  I needed a happy ending...this was not going according to plan.

It was technically very early Easter morning now.  I began to try and piece a sermon together since every time John stood up he had a bout a fifteen second window before he became violently nauseous.  Normally,  does not make for great public speaking.  Only, I wasn't feeling much better.  It was too late to call for other reinforcements.   What would become of the celebration?

I forced myself out of bed. I called some awesome volunteers to cover the holes in Sunday School and Children's Church.   And somehow, my big happy celebration had been traded for a very puny sick day.

I opened the oven door to discover the resurrection cookies I made for the kids  somehow morphed piles of  marshmallow goop. UGH.   Yep. That's about right.  I  opened the fridge and found magenta liquid oozing everywhere.  The cobbler pan has tipped and caused a river flowing to a sea of sugar free cobbler filling  at the bottom of the refrigerator.

Easter morning, I sat cleaning puke, snot, diapers and cobbler goo, while feeling only half alive.  I had to pause and collapse onto the couch every few minutes when I felt like passing out.  Easter morning, instead of feasting on resurrection cookies, we were tossing our cookies.  Easter morning,  instead of reveling in worship with our church family, I was surrounded by grumpy, sick kids, and a depressed, green husband. I was sick and disappointed. And they were just as sick and disappointed as me.

It was Easter morning. We didn't feel like singing.  We didn't see the filled pews. I didn't get to teach the Story like I had planned.  The festive food was disastrous; no one even felt like eating anyway.  ( Not even the chocolate!) Torrential rain squelched what ever glimmer of hope I had for huge miraculous recovery and celebration.  How could I celebrate the resurrection like this?  Where was my happy ending?

 But it was still Easter.  Somewhat like the ladies at the tomb, we were expecting one thing, and got something completely different.  We expected shiny, happy, vibrant, yummy Easter.  We got gray, weak, bland and puke-y Easter.  Mary came expecting to grieve and mourn Jesus.  She expected death and maybe a chance for closure.  She had prepared, as best she could, to go to the tomb and finish the job of burial.    Imagine her surprise when instead she got to begin the job of spreading the good news of life and resurrection.

For better, or for worse, Easter still comes.  The tomb is still empty, even if the Resurrection cookies are not.  Jesus rose from the dead, even if I doubt if I can rise from the couch.  God wants good things for us, even if, at the moment, we are knee deep in foul putrescence and disappointment.  He is the Redeemer, and it is His story.  He moves far beyond what we can ask, or imagine; far greater than we could ever expect--no matter how or where we worship him.

I wanted my shiny, happy, pretty, Easter.  It did not come.  But Easter, true Easter still did. In Easter, we have ability to look at brokenness of this life and realize their is hope because of His ultimate wholeness. Not only does Easter still come, it stays with us.  Because He stays with us.  He is present with us in all of the grey, gloomy lonely says as much as he is in the bright, happy perfect days.  In Easter, we have the Grace to speak sermons from germy sick beds, and have an indoor egg crawl.  In the midst of weakness, we  prove that He is strong, that He is Risen.  With cobbler and pork roast, or with saltines and Sprite we say: He is good and He sustains us.  No circumstance can change that.   And that is a happy ending I can celebrate.