Dear Reader:

As I reassembled the Easter Tomb scene that I ordered last year… I realized that in the big picture Jesus’ beginning and ending had come, like life, full circle.

I felt like I was putting a Christmas Nativity scene together… then it struck me! I was ! Jesus went from being born to re-born. In both scenes Jesus’ mother Mary is there, family, friends, animals, and angels. I decided to even add a rock and rabbit in my garden!

When I first read today’s title…Don’t Leave Life… Without It…. I, admittedly, shook my head initially. How is that possible? Then the light came on. By the time we pass.. can others say our lives were lived to the fullest? Did we truly live life when we were alive?

I remember associating my daddy with Jesus… when I first learned in Sunday School ( as a child) that they both died in their early 30’s … seemingly before they could complete all their dreams and aspirations. It appeared to me that they both were cheated out of their full potential. I remember feeling angry… I wanted my daddy back and Jesus should have lived longer. It all seemed terribly unfair to me. I remember glaring at elderly members in our family’s congregation wondering why them and not my daddy?

All these pent-up feelings came flooding back when David died at 21-weeks before his college graduation and a potential teaching career. Why oh why?

Do y’all remember the cartoon sequence about carrying the cross… one character kept asking for his cross to be cut down because he felt it was too heavy for him to carry… only to encounter a long ravine before the final promised land goal… and now he couldn’t cross it … devastated he looked up and saw help coming from above.

Only God knows when our time is complete on earth and no doubt ( as scripture tells us) even when His Own Son begged to be relieved from pain and suffering it was not to be. In the end… in every situation we find so difficult to accept… especially loved ones’ passings… it comes down to one common denominator-FAITH. ( ” My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me-nevertheless not as I will but as you will… Your will be done.” )

Until one day when we finally get to open the Book of Answers to all the human ” WHY” questions… it is faith that will take us home.

So until tomorrow… Good Friday… the most emotionally difficult day of Easter… yet if we have faith… Good Friday is also Homecoming and what a day of joyous celebration that will be! The day we finally lay down our burdens and watch God pick them up.

Today is my favorite day-Winnie the Pooh