Renewal is always waiting on me.

Written on HOly Saturday of 2013

As I sit here in my little garden, in the early morning quiet of Holy Saturday, I realize that most of my life has been lived in Holy Saturday. By that I mean my life has not been filled with the unbearable pain of Good Friday and I haven’t always had days filled with the unending joy of Easter dawn. Yes, I have had days of great pain and days of great joy, but most of my life has been in between days. 

Like most people, my days have been days of waiting, just as Peter, James and John and the others waited during Holy Saturday. I am always waiting. Waiting to get into college; Waiting to meet the right person; Waiting to have my daughters; Waiting to get a job and then another job and then another; Waiting for things at work to improve and they don’t; Waiting for diagnosis the that I dreaded from the doctor; Waiting for the lab results; Waiting, waiting, waiting, just waiting for life to get better. 

I look around and I see the different kinds of waiting; the wait of despair...where we think/nay we KNOW! that things will NEVER get better, the Lord will not do anything with our situations. Nothing will ever change. That is not the place for a Christian.

The waiting of dread is what made the disciples fear for their lives and retreat behind closed doors on Holy Saturday, cowering in terror of the unknown future. After Jesus was executed they were in danger of being rounded up and executed by the Roman authorities. But then I look at the women disciples who didn't run from Jesus’ side, and they were more hopeful. 

I am not a passive person, but there are many people that are. They just throw up their hands and leave everything up to fate. They don’t have despair but they sure can’t anticipate anything good in their lives either. They just live in the land of “Whatever” . The land of “Whatever” is not where a Christian should be.

As a Christian, I am called to the wait of HOPE. Hope is actively waiting and knowing that, in my lowest and darkest of situations, God is working in my life very powerfully even when I don’t see it. The Holy Spirit is always with the believer. Jesus’ disciples’ dread and confusion after the crucifixion was understandable but we know how the story turned out. We KNOW that Jesus rose from the dead, that God is with us, and nothing is impossible for God, to all His faithful who are called to wait hope.

I am learning to look carefully for the signs of the new life that is always before me… just like that handful of faithful disciples who stood at the foot of His Cross and waited patiently at his Tomb during Holy Saturday. 

I kneel here in my garden with my hands in the earth planting seeds and waiting and watching the sprouts emerge from the dark damp earth and I know that change is always possible, renewal is always waiting, and hope is never dead as long as I have the Joyful Hope of the Lord in my heart.