Ordinary Life

This past week we’ve been lacing up our shoes and going for long walks in the sunshine. One day we went for our walk and then Mike bought me ice cream. Definitely a great end to a good walk. I also squeezed in a long-overdue Pilates workout this week. And I do mean long overdue...especially when you mix in the ice cream like you see there on the left. :)

We had a lovely weekend, including only a half day of work on Friday (yay!). Saturday we went out for pizza & a movie with my husband’s parents to celebrate his mom’s birthday. They came back to our house afterwards to partake of the cake which I attempted to make for her.

Words of Wisdom: when decorating with strawberries, place them on just before serving or else the juice will pool and leak all over…

Um, yeah.

Moving on.

Sunday was church and then brunch with Mike’s family, which was lovely and yummy. Then a quick trip to see my family, who was still recovering from colds and a stomach virus.
Love ya, but no thanks.

Hubby & I have been making our way though the Lord of the Rings trilogy of movies. I use the phrase ‘making our way’ rather loosely, seeing as we are only on the second disk of the first movie (extended editions, of course!). I have a really hard time staying awake for movies so we have to watch it in rather small segments so I don’t doze off and miss stuff. It’s been several years since I’ve seen the movies, and I admit, it’s been fun getting to watch them together. I just love those little hobbits! Definitely my favorite characters.

Worked out in the yard yesterday and get a bunch of bushes trimmed down and brush out to the street for pick-up. Now for confession time: I am not an outdoor-kind-of-girl! I hate bugs, thorns, dirt under my nails, sweating, spiders, etc. But I absolutely love flowers and pretty gardens, so I make sacrifices. And after making those sacrifices, I run as fast into the shower as I possibly can to get all the above-mentioned items off my skin.

He Arose!

Hope is alive; Love is now risen!
Jesus the Christ has conquered the grave!
Fears are behind, sins are forgiven;
by God’s own Son the power of death has died.
Hope is alive!

Hope. Love. Joy. Life. Peace.

Easter is the culmination of all these things.

I watched Daffodils bud and bloom in my garden this week and it was such a perfect picture to me of the life that sprung forth on Easter morning. A reminder of the hope that was given to all men on that beautiful day.

There in the ground His body lay
Light of the world by darkness slain
Then bursting forth in glorious Day
Up from the grave He rose again
And as He stands in victory
Sin’s curse has lost its grip on me
For I am His and He is mine
Bought with the precious blood of Christ

Because of Christ’s work on that cross, we have Life, we live with Hope,
we have Peace unsurpassed, a Joy the world cannot fathom,
and we are surrounded by His unbounded Love.

As Dark As It Gets

These words are not mine, but I hope they touch you as they did me.

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Johann Sebastian Bach's The St. John Passion was first performed on Good Friday in Leipzig, Germany, some 285 years ago. I heard it for the first time on Good Friday in a small Lutheran church in Houston, Texas.

The libretto combines the text of John's Gospel, stanzas of old church hymns, and poetic text. It is not known who ordered the words to accompany Bach's achingly beautiful score - perhaps he had some hand in selecting them; perhaps not.

As they were sung in German, I followed the English translation in my lap, but I could have closed it - and my eyes - and still understood. The familiar story unfolded on a current of sheer emotion, carried along by the music's inflection and intensity, and the sometimes harsh, sometimes hushed interplay of voices.

Loud, angry cries of "Kreuzige ihn!" needed no footnote. I got it. And the music itself let me know the moment my Lord said "It is finished!" I waited to hear the rocks split, and the temple veil to tear top to bottom, and for tombs to open and darkness to fall, and I did. I heard it all.

Then a soprano voice sang these words: "Dissolve in tears my heart, in floods of weeping in honor of the Most High. Tell the earth and the heavens your anguish: Your Jesus is dead!"

That's as dark as it gets.

Have you ever been in utter, total, can't-see-your-hand-in-front-of-your-face dark? The kind of dark that makes you wonder if there'll ever be light again? Once, near midnight in a tiny house in a Hill Country canyon, I blew out one last, flickering oil lamp and the world fell away. I didn't know black could cover so much, so fast. And I thought to myself, "This must be as dark as it gets."

Maybe the dark you remember is not physical dark, but dark of another kind. Maybe there was a moment when you lost something so precious that you thought the sun couldn't possibly bring itself to rise another time. Maybe you thought when it happened, "This is as dark as it gets."

It wasn't.

"As dark as it gets" was when the Father's only Son offered up His final breath, and it looked like death had won. "As dark as it gets" was when communication ceased between God the Father and God the Son - when two who'd never been apart, were. "As dark as it gets" was a snuffed out hope, a sealed tomb, a buried promise, and the empty hours between Friday and Sunday.

"As dark as it gets" happened once. It will never be that dark again.

"Rest well, sacred limbs;" the chorus sang as the music ended. "I no longer weep for you: sleep well, and bring me too, to rest. The grave which is reserved for you no more dismays me: it opens heaven's gates for me and closes those of hell."

"Ruht wohl, ruht wohl," rest well. It's already been as dark as it will ever be.

"Why do you seek the living One among the dead? He is not here, but He has risen." (John 24:5-6, NASB)

© Leigh McLeroy 2005