I was on the edge of weeping all day Friday thinking of the cross and my Jesus.  It started in the morning when I opened to Isaiah (I can't stay out of that book) and my marker was on chapter 53.  I read about Him being crushed and pierced and bruised and my heart that has been unmoved for too long, gave out.  My aunt came for coffee and together we talked about our brothers and sisters who are running a bloody race.  We talked about the 30 in Korea and the thousands in China and my voice broke when I told her that I do not pray over them like I should.  Heaven moves when we pray.  Why don't I?

She wondered over her children, wondered over what The Passion means to them, wondered over future generations of children.  What happens when it becomes just another story?  What happens when the world takes this and turns it into a small thing and our faith becomes soft?

I sat in Good Friday service and I was thankful for the dark room, thankful for a chair in a row all my own and I could not bear the weight of the day.  I listened to the timeline: the trials, the beatings, the mocking and the hate.  I thought on the great unfairness of it all.  I tried to wrap my mind around a God who was willing to be killed by His creation.  I tried to wrap my mind around a God who would kill His Son to save someone as thoughtless as me.  I thought about the times I have taken that cross lightly.  The times I have been flippant and unrushed and casual with The Passion.

I prayed that my sin had not felt too heavy for Him, I'm sorry for the weight of it, so sorry.  I prayed that I wouldn't waste the cross, prayed this over my family, Why do you give us the luxury of choosing to be distant?  Of deciding that right now, this isn't for me but maybe I'll be back someday.  I wondered if He heard those words said by so many people while He hung there pouring Himself out for us, I wondered what it felt like to be rushed at once by all the world's evil and ugliness and blatant disregard.

I opened Isaiah again, noticed the word sorrow over and over and over.

I was His sorrow.

It is Easter morning and now I am His joy.  I am so glad there is a transition to be made.  I am so glad I love a God who cannot be killed, who gave me the cross in spite of my foolishness.  I am so glad for a reason to love myself-- He loved me and that is all that matters.  He loves me and that is remarkable.