Today is the day between holidays. My calendar says Jesus died yesterday and will rise again tomorrow. Today is the dark in-between. Today is the numbness and confusion. Today is the holiday celebrating all the days that don’t make sense. The days where everything you thought about God get’s rocked. When he no longer seems in control. When you doubt his goodness.
Today is the day of that weird sickness in your gut when you just can’t believe that someone has really died. When you can’t function at work and you get mad at people who sing to the radio. Today is the day of breaking down.
Today is the day when none of that happy fairytale endings seem to mesh with reality. When you are face to face with the brokenness of the world. When you see people starving and remember your relatively opulent lifestyle. When reality seeps through the cracks in your fiction.
Today is the day where people let you down. Where you trusted someone completely and they turned out different than you expected. It’s the knife in the heart. The hurt and the blame that tempts you to thicken your skin and never trust again.
Today is the imbalance and confusion. It is the shock and system failure. Today is the day you lose your faith.
But tomorrow…..
Tomorrow is the day when God comes swooping in and proves Himself better than the evil you face. When bread is multiplied and the romance is righted. Tomorrow is the celebration of bones that are set and wells that are dug. Tomorrow the weak are finally strong; the righteous right the wrongs.
Tomorrow is the day people raise from the dead.
Some people have a hard time believing that tomorrow ever comes. In the valley of the shadow of death it is hard to see hope. But today is just as much a celebration. It is the celebration of the goodness that seems contradicted by my circumstance. It is the celebration of the white knuckled grip on what I think I know of God’s love. It is the celebration of the long dark tunnel, the belly of the whale.
“While we wait for a rescue with our eyes tightly shut
face to the ground using our hands to cover the fatal cut.
And though the pain is an ocean tossing us around
You have calmed greater waters and higher mountains have come down.
I will sing of your mercy, that leads me through valleys of sorrow, to rivers of joy… ” -Jars of Clay
