Then Came The Morning!

I’ve grown up listening to the Easter story my entire life. Every Sunday morning we would rise before dawn, get on our new clothes and sit in church as the sun rose that beautiful morning and shine through the stained glass windows. I always knew as a child the double meaning of that morning and how it relates to our lives. 

In my older years I’ve begun to look at Easter morning as so much more in my life. I now know what that morning truly meant and how looking at it relates to my own life. Not as an overbearing believer but as human being that tries to live by example of kindness, acceptance and positivity. Do I struggle at times with a multitude of things? Of course I do but just as that bleak Friday happened thousands of years ago, I can still hold tight because…..

Then came the Morning! 

How dark the “night” must have been after Jesus had been crucified and buried.  Not only had they lost a son, a teacher and a dear friend, they had lost hope. They had to have wondered why they left everything to follow a man they were so confident was the Messiah. They had to have questioned why after He showed power over demons, illness, and even death, He went so quietly to His own. How could this have happened?

It’s very easy for us, from our vantage point, to skip over the bleak darkness of Friday, isn’t it? We know Sunday’s coming! We know the end of the story, for God in His great mercy towards us has given us His Word. Most of us have celebrated Christ’s Resurrection  our entire lives. But it was very different that first dark Friday.

That crucifixion Friday, there was grief. That day, there were questions—deep, probing questions about everything they had heard, seen and had been building their lives on for the last 3 ½ years. How could He be gone? The grief they must have felt, the fear and insecurity, the absolute uncertainty about their own futures takes my breath away..for they didn’t know yet that the morning would dawn so brightly!

Have you ever found yourself on a “Friday”? Has the day gotten so dark that you cannot even imagine seeing the light? Have you felt forgotten? Neglected? Tricked? Used? Have you been walking a path that you believed wholeheartedly God had laid out for you, only to have it end up looking very differently than you would have ever imagined?

Oh, those dark Fridays!

Just as the disciples couldn’t see through that dark weekend, our vision is very limited, too. But, dear friends, Fridays don’t last forever! God is busy on those dark Fridays working in ways that we could never guess! When the morning dawns, just as it did that Easter Sunday morning, we will be able to stand in awe of how God led us and sustained us all the way.

Fridays are difficult. No one would choose to walk through them, but there are some beautiful “Sunday mornings” that you can only get to by walking through the dark valleys on Friday.