He is risen!

He is risen!

Lent has always been a very significant season for me. Growing up in a Christian-based home and community, Lent has always been emphasized as a time for sacrifice and reflection. However, the older I get and the more I fall into my "adult" faith life, the deeper I begin to understand the significance of this season. With each passing year, Good Friday specifically becomes a day harder and harder for me to stomach. My mother has always greatly emphasized this day in our home but as a child I lacked the understanding and was annoyed by my mother's strict rule of fasting and abstaining from meat. As a younger adult, I slowly began to understand more but them compensated by filling my day keeping busy to distract myself from the reality of what happened on this day in my faith... each year, I dig deeper in myself and feel deeper the gravity of what occurred on Good Friday. Our savior violently crucified. This year, however, I did not seek ways to keep busy or distract myself. This year, I sat. I sat in sadness, in despair, in confusion, in hunger for understanding, and in anger. Good did not defeat evil this day. Truth did not beat deception this day.

But then I woke up today on Easter, and Christ conquered death. The impossible became possible.Truth did prevail. And as I said Alleluia this morning, my heart rejoiced and I felt immense peace and hope.

This past year in both small and large ways, I (like many I assume) have felt immense discouragement. It seems in this world that wrong is praised and right is condemned. Evil advances, while goodness appears to not progress. Good is made to look wicked, and wicked is disguised to be good. Truth is so masked in our world, and the way of what is right faces much opposition. Discouragement has become way too comfortable, and I’ve become comfortable settling for this emotion. But God is our hope, and God never intended for us to accept discouragement as a destination. Jesus died and rises again. Today, I’m reminded that regardless of the gravity of the wicked and the wrong, goodness does prevail. Christ conquered death, and He did it for each of us. How blessed are we.