Good Friday comes first, and then Easter. Lent is the time set aside for grieving, and it takes a good amount of time. We have to go through the whole process in order to heal, in order to regain our joy. Donna Ashworth, in her poem Before and After says it so well:
You may find that you begin
to measure your life
before
and after
they left
and that's ok. Just be sure
whatever you do
whatever tiny grain of strength
you have left
that you strive
to fill up the after
as richly
and as beautifully
as they helped you fill
the before.
The before
is committed to memory now
but the after
is totally up to you
Make it count
Mary Magdalene did that. She went grieving, to embalm the body of Jesus, to do what little she could to make life bearable again, and she found joy when she met the risen Lord. As did I at our Easter church service where we decorated the cross with flowers. Below is our pastor and a little girl pinning flowers on the cross.
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At home I found joy by doing small things. I decorated an Easter tree by hanging little Easter ornaments on my orange tree.
After our Easter family supper we played a favorite game but used Easter egg candy instead of marbles! That was fun, especially when I could not always distinguish the green color from the blue!
The gift of beautiful flowers is always a cause for joy!
A special Easter greeting , was this photo the little girl on the right sent me. Her father was the linguist with whom Hardy worked to translate the Bible into Kikongo, a trade language in Congo. She is grown up now with children of her own, but has fond memories of Hardy staying with them. This photo was taken two years before he returned from Congo and we got married, and went back for another 15 years.
