Content warning: mentions of suicide ideation Four Easters ago, we awoke to a snowstorm. The streets were covered and the quiet world of lockdown became even quieter as the snow absorbed any remaining noise. It was Easter Sunday, but it might as well have been the apocalypse. Even the Methodist church across from our apartment stood shuttered and vacant. There were no egg hunts or potlucks or sunrise services. Just brutal cold and quiet descending upon a previously bustling city.
Oh Sarah, oh my. Your words and spoken voice have given me understanding and perhaps some hope. I am grateful you are here. In love and blessings this weekend, Susan.
This season of Lent I have been reading Michael Heiser's _Unseen Realm_. It has expanded my understanding of the layers upon layers of what Jesus was accomplishing on the cross so much that I am finally, after 40 years in the church, experiencing an awed appreciation and sense of the true dimensions of, yes, the victory that blows away the suffering like so much dust. For a lay version (if wading through scholarly footnotes is not your thing) he also published _Supernatural_. I have always been more aware of the cruelty and suffering of this day, Good Friday. I kept vigil last night, meditating as always on the cost of the victory, the effects of sin, the death that comes to all of us and the terrible, inconsolable grief that follows. And yet the grief of His death *was* consoled with Life and reversal and recapitulate and the overcoming of every dreadful thing we suffer. Our suffering is real and terrible, just as His was, and yet it's not the end of the story. I now have a better sense of what the rest of the story looks like, and it's giving me life. I'm praying for you and your journey, sweet Sarah! May you find your way to resurrection joy.
Oh Sarah, oh my. Your words and spoken voice have given me understanding and perhaps some hope. I am grateful you are here. In love and blessings this weekend, Susan.
This season of Lent I have been reading Michael Heiser's _Unseen Realm_. It has expanded my understanding of the layers upon layers of what Jesus was accomplishing on the cross so much that I am finally, after 40 years in the church, experiencing an awed appreciation and sense of the true dimensions of, yes, the victory that blows away the suffering like so much dust. For a lay version (if wading through scholarly footnotes is not your thing) he also published _Supernatural_. I have always been more aware of the cruelty and suffering of this day, Good Friday. I kept vigil last night, meditating as always on the cost of the victory, the effects of sin, the death that comes to all of us and the terrible, inconsolable grief that follows. And yet the grief of His death *was* consoled with Life and reversal and recapitulate and the overcoming of every dreadful thing we suffer. Our suffering is real and terrible, just as His was, and yet it's not the end of the story. I now have a better sense of what the rest of the story looks like, and it's giving me life. I'm praying for you and your journey, sweet Sarah! May you find your way to resurrection joy.