What a Difference a Week Makes

         Today is Easter Sunday. This morning after opening Easter baskets and taking the mandatory photos, the boys and I went out on our back deck and blew bubbles. The sun was shining down on us and a warm breeze gently grazed our faces. We soaked in the beautiful warm weather.  I was hit by the irony that last Sunday looked incredibly different for us here in Illinois. Last Sunday morning as we drove to church for the kids' Easter program, we ran into dangerously slick conditions, Snow was whipping through at high speeds and ice covered the country roads. My van began to slip and slide. I knew immediately that I had lost all control and we were assuredly going off the road. I frantically prayed that we wouldn't hit anything in the process. Thankfully, we spun around, missed the telephone pole not too far away, and ended up in the muddy ditch without a scratch on neither us or the vehicle. As strangers rushed to our aide and I waited for my dad and tow truck to rescue us, I stood in the freezing  winter weather, fingers going completely numb from the exposure. What a difference one week can make. I thought back on that today as my boys and I flew their new kites with nothing but shorts and t-shirt to cover us. No coats were needed. We were comfortable and content with the gorgeous weather. The hardship of the weather and my accident last week was a thing of the past that no longer felt relevant today.

     Most  of us are probably pretty familiar with how quickly life can change. Unlike my experience with the weather this week, it is typically not the quick "negative to a positive" change that happens so shortly. We wish that like the weather our difficult circumstances would change dramatically and radically,  but the truth is that kind of change usually takes time and healing. Unfortunately we know  that it doesn't take much time at all for life to get flipped upside down. That kind of change can happen instantaneously. We can look back on our lives and point to those defining moments when all was right in the world until it wasn't. I can think back to September 2012. I had just spent a week at home in Illinois soaking in sweet time with friends and family. I went to our annual Labor Day family picnic, went out for dinner with good friends, and savored the crisp Midwest fall air that was beginning to make an appearance. I flew home to meet my husband who had stayed behind and we made a variety of plans for that weekend. We never accomplished any of them. Less than a week of me arriving back home in sweltering Texas, I was laying in an ambulance bloodied and bruised with a brand new view on life itself. Life got turned upside down and I felt years away from the cool Illinois breeze I had experienced not all  that long ago. .What a difference a week can make!
This change can be hard to comprehend. My stomach turns when I think of how quickly life can take us by surprise. I imagine the  disciples had the same feeling that first Holy Week. On Palm Sunday we read of Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a donkey as a king being adored and praised by crowds of people. The disciples surely thought good things were on the horizon. They could have never imagined how drastically their lives would change in just a few short days. On what we now call Good Friday, I try to imagine how the disciples were feeling. The one they loved so dearly, the one who performed miracles before their very eyes, the one they had placed on hope on, was now hanging on a cross enduring an excruciating and humiliating death. How could this even be? It was less than a week ago that their teacher and lord was being hailed a hero and a king. Is it even possible for life to change that drastically in such a short time?  They had to be racked with confusion and shock even though they were told to expect this. The despair that they were in is hard to comprehend, but I think we can often relate to the feeling of having "the rug pulled out from under us". Like the disciples, we get excited about the future and how things seem to be going. We feel that joy and the hope of possibility of  what could be ahead. However often times, we discover that what's ahead looks more like heartache and grief than great possibility. I know this feeling well. On November 30, 2016. Things were looking bright for me. Our family had grown that year, ministry was thriving and the holiday season was arriving!  I spent that afternoon planning out the new family traditions we were going to start for Christmas and selling some items online to be able to pay for them. I had a list of ideas and journaled that I was sure that this year we would make memories that would last a lifetime. Less than a week later, I was 1000 miles away from those possibilities, a single mother, and a heart full of shock and ache. Like the disciples, I questioned how it was possible for life to change so dramatically in such a short time.
    Good Friday was a day of shock and intense sorrow for Jesus' followers and friends. But in three days time, everything changed once again. This time the despair turned to hope and the sorrow turned to joy. It's not often we witness this version of extravagant life transformation. The resurrection of Jesus is that pivotal point in history where it all changed for the better.  I am reminded that no matter what pain I come face to face with, I can look to the death of Jesus and the empty tomb and know that there is eternal hope and redemption that far outweighs it all.. Like the change from ice and snow to  sunshine and warmth, he brings new life and joy. I love how Jesus can transform my life in an instant without changing a single one of my circumstances. I find great hope in that this Easter Sunday. He is risen indeed.