Happy Easter

He is Risen!!

Today culminates the quietest Easter season of my life. No fanfare this year. No rehearsals, no running around. Not even a new dress. I'll be attending a service this morning, quietly with my family (or as quiet as we get anyway) but I'll not step foot on the stage area and won't be called upon to spout profundity or bare the contents of my overflowing heart for all to observe.

Only here I share with you the most precious truth for me this Easter. It started 2 weeks ago as I sang an old song with words that were new again to me: "He took my sins and my sorrows, He made them His very own. He bore the burden to Calvary and suffered and died alone." The last several years of my life I've become more familiar with sin and sorrow than I ever imagined I'd be. And to know, to make that truth personal again, that He took MY sin and MY sorrow, and made them His very own... makes me realize again the reason I will love Jesus forever. I have been and am now deeply loved by some of the most wonderful human beings ever created. Yet, all that love is just a shadow of the One who went past sympathy, past compassion, past mercy and made my sorrows His own. He alone can truly identify with me, understand me, accept me, and when all other loves fail... still love me completely. Beyond all the celebration, underneath the high note hallelujahs of today, Easter this year whispered very real, very intimate, very personal realization to me. Jesus reached down and took me on in all my crazy quirks, mistakes and mishaps. The me nobody can fully understand is known completely by Him and loved anyway.

In joy or sadness, sorrow or celebration, this truth is the source of life and love for me. Jesus did for me what I couldn't do for myself, and because of Him I am forever loved and accepted. Because of Him, I have hope now and always.

The old hymn finishes out: "How marvelous, how wonderful! And my song shall ever be, How marvelous, how wonderful is my Savior's love for me." And now, with no one to hear but that Savior, my heart sings it.

Happy Easter.