Waiting With the Sharks on Good Friday
There’s a saying that goes, “Don’t count your chickens before they’ve moved out of your house to live on their own.”
(OK…so that’s not the phrase exactly, but it SHOULD be.)
Sometimes I buy into the lie that parenting is a linear climb that’s supposed to end in 100% mature children with the spirituality of Mother Teresa. Some days it feels like they’re making progress, absorbing life lessons, and throwing fewer pointy objects at each other.
*sigh*
Then there are weeks like this one. We’ve been working to equip one of our son’s to better control his anger, and felt that he was finally making healthy strides in the right direction. We were also gaining confidence as parents, learning to control our own emotions better. (Apparently that’s kind of important. Who knew?)
But it was like we took two glorious steps forward, only to take one step backwards…right off a cliff into shark infested water.
(Umm…does your life feel like that picture right now? A little bit like you’re just barely escaping some really sharp teeth? Welcome to my world.)
For some reason this week my son relapsed into his former unmanageable anger episodes, leaving me overwhelmed with a “DANGER: FAILING MOM” sign flashing in my heart. Clearly I’m not “there” yet…wherever there is. I’m still swimming with the sharks.
For me, Good Fridays are synonymous with my not-perfect-yet, sometimes shark-infested state.
A few years ago on Good Friday I was rushing my daughter to preschool like a madwoman, only to drive into the empty school parking lot and wonder if the world had been raptured. There was no other explanation for why the entire school failed to show up…except me.
This Good Friday I remembered to write “NO SCHOOL” on my calendar, and yet I still sit here feeling the weight of broken expectations and a world that’s heavy with pain.
There are so many tragedies all around me, yet I feel in my soul an inability to fix even the smallest problems right in front of me, or make whole the little people entrusted to me.
And I realize, I’m STILL waiting on a resurrection.
I’m waiting on a God who promises to make beauty from ashes.
I’m waiting on a Jesus strong enough to cover my anger, and my son’s, and the world’s.
I’m waiting on a renewal of everything, when I’m not bound by disease or pain or fear.
Easter reminds us of what Jesus accomplished on the Cross and what He will one day complete.
Good Friday reminds me that we’re not there quite yet and some days feel more backwards than forwards.
Here in the excruciating wait, we’re reminded of our weakness, our desperation for true justice, our longing for wholeness and our desire for Jesus Himself. And maybe there in the pain we find a hidden beauty of neediness and hoping for God that we simply couldn’t know any other way. The resurrection is much sweeter when we’ve dwelt in the death. And in that sense…it is a very Good Friday.
So don’t lose heart. The Resurrection is coming. And I promise the sharks won’t be there forever.
2 Corinthians 4:16-18 “Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”
Hebrews 10:23 “Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful.”
2 Peter 3:13-14 “But in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, where righteousness dwells.So then, dear friends, since you are looking forward to this, make every effort to be found spotless, blameless and at peace with him.”
Psalm 130:5 “I wait for the Lord, my whole being waits, and in his word I put my hope.”
New International Version (NIV)
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