Easter thoughts

It has been a very long couple of weeks. God has opened another door in our lives. Last week I started a new job at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh. It has been very tiring, very rewarding and very frustrating. Last year at this time our life looked so very different than it does right now. So many things have changed and I don't think they are done yet. What I have learned is that I am not in control. My job is to continue to walk in faith one day and sometimes one moment at a time. Working at Children's Hospital reminds me of Tonia because she spent time at Children's Hospital of Chicago when she was 7 years old. The atmosphere was wonderful. Everyone there wanted to be on the kids' sides against disease and death. I have seen kids who are so sick yet they walk around the hospital with their IV poles, playing and laughing. It is an amazing sight. God is very present. He is in the faces of the teams of people who are fighting disease and death. He is present in the joy on the kids faces as they see the hospital dogs walking around with bunny ears on this week. He is present when a family says goodbye to their child. The people are an amazing team. I am blessed!

So after going to the Good Friday service last night I have some thoughts about our lives over the last nine months. We have been in mourning over the death of Tonia and we will continue to mourn her loss for a very long time. But we are not mourning without hope.

This weekend has already affected me in ways that I never expected. Last nights service was so powerful. I bawled like a baby. Jesus understands my pain and my mourning. Jesus was mourning over the very people who placed him on the cross; The pharisees, the guards and even his own disciples. They abandoned him at the time of his greatest need. At such a time as this the verse "Jesus wept" is so true and so humbling. He is crying out to God asking, why have you forsaken me, even as he is asking God to forgive them, for they know not what they do. He is mourning the sins of the world, taking them upon Himself and crying out to God. The Good Firday scene ends when he is placed in the tomb. But remember that our joy comes in the morning. God wipes away every tear from our eyes and that promise is seen when the tomb is found empty on Easter morning!

Jesus wept, cried out, asked forgiveness, died and prepared the way for the day when our tears, our suffering will be wiped away. On the day we accepted Christ as our Savior we wept and cried out to God to save us and he wiped away the sins of the past and promised that one day he will wipe away all of the tears and the burdens that we carry on earth!

He is a God that turns mourning into joy. Easter is coming! The promise is kept. Our hope for the future is written in the empty tomb. God is truly amazing and I am humbled by His sacrifice for me.

God has called Tonia home just as he called His own son home. But without the mourning that Jesus did on the cross for us, Tonia would not be celebrating Easter in Heaven. Jesus prepared the way for her and for me. So today I weep over the loss in my heart and in our lives. I cry out to God "why can't I have my girl with me here today" but I also celebrate with eyes and arms wide open; letting Tonia go for this time, this moment but knowing that she is waiting right next to Jesus to welcome me home one day! One day all of my tears will be wiped from my eyes!

May this weekend your hearts be filled with the joy and the peace and the promise of Easter!
I love you all!
Kathy