Jesus: “In the shadow of My Cross, you sit. My body and life are missing today. Gone.

What was is no longer and what will be is not yet. You’re not only wondering about what is next but if there will even be a next…”

***

I know this day well, as I suspect many of you do too.

It was the day after my mother died and again, the day after my father died.

It was the day after my marriage ended – in a courtroom far less holy than where it began.

It is the day after all you lived for now is no longer.

It is the day after death. Where hope seems beyond grasp and clarity only brings despair.

A part of your life has died. A part of you has died.

Today is the hard day. Today is the painful day of initiation by reality.

The day we realize again and again that it really did happen. This is our new reality.

And it brings with it feelings: grief, sorrow, hurt, fear, anger, guilt, and shame – feelings so magnified they consume us. The torrent of our tears leaves us exhausted and depleted.

Anyone who has been on the journey of life for a good distance is cognizant of what a great loss can do to upend your world.

I’m not going to try and paint a pretty picture here -the day after changes you, forever.

Normal will never look the same again. Joy and beauty and happiness will never be the same again. Nor will pain. Life simply will not be the same again.

You won’t be the same.

Great loss forever unsettles you from the life you once knew.

***

Jesus: “Today you are in the shadow of My Cross. The Cross that will transform you. The Cross I turned from an instrument of death into the Tree of Life. And in so doing I made living for tomorrow possible. A tomorrow where you are no longer imprisoned by your losses – no, they become your story of life. A new life. Tomorrow, your life begins again as it does every day in Me, not apart from your losses but through them. You will grow and live a new life in the light of My resurrection and My life.

I promise you this:

“I will take you from the nations, and gather you from all the countries, and bring you into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleanliness, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit within you, and make you follow my statutes and be careful to observe my ordinances. Then you shall live in the land that I gave to your ancestors; and you shall be my people, and I will be your God.” -Ezekiel 36-24-28

Let your light so shine!!!