תקומה (Resurrection)

"Now after the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to look at the grave. And behold, a severe earthquake had occurred, for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled away the stone and sat upon it." ~Matthew 28:1-2

I can only imagine what it was like to wake up on that morning.

The sorrow would have still be so incredibly fresh. The pain would have remained a thudding, almost crushing ache.

...if only they knew.

Because the power was brewing...the war was coming to its glorious conclusion...

...to the point that the world could not contain it for another minute longer.

The ground shook.

The guards collapsed.

The stone was rolled away.

The tomb sat cold. Hollow. EMPTY.

And the angel found his seat upon the overturned door, waiting for those who needed to hear his earth-shattered message.

"Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here...for He is risen, just as He said He would..."

The disbelief would have been incredible, almost impossible for their still-broken hearts to fathom...before it all turned to a powerful, measureless joy.

This morning, I felt powerful, heart-gripping joy.

I cried tears of passionate gratitude and indescribable adoration.

The tomb is empty.

Death has been defeated.

Hell has been overturned.

Death COULD NOT handle Him. The grave COULD NOT hold Him.

My King is risen!

"...she [the White Witch] would have known that when a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor's stead, the Table would crack and Death itself would start working backward." ~C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

Silence

There are two kinds of silence.

There is the beautiful kind...the whisper before the storm erupts, the wordless moments shared between two friends, the elegant emptiness of the night sky.

And then there is the heavy silence.

The silence that screams of loneliness, fear, desolation, and unspeakable sorrow and regret.

This is the most frightening sound of all to me.

And it was in this echoing silence in which the disciples lay.

Barely sleeping, barely eating.

Locked away in the upper room of an unknown house, huddled in tear-stained masses as their terrified minds replayed the events of the previous day.

The Man whom they had followed...the One in whom they had placed their faith, trust, and their entire existence...

...dragged away, beaten to an unrecognizable pile of blood and bruises, and then hung upon a splintered cross to gasp out His final breaths.

Yeshua -- their Master, their Lord -- was dead.

And they had fled.

The guilt they all must have felt...the regret and sorrow...for only John had stayed at the foot of the cross until the thunder rolled and the rocks broke into pieces.

The silence must have weighed as heavy as the stone that they had rolled over the mouth of the cave in which they had placed the beaten, lifeless body of their Rabbi.

Crushing.

Destructive.

Overbearing.

Wordless weeping, empty despair.

...but this was not the end...

...for in this silence, a mighty war was waging.

The war against Death. The war against Hell. The war against hopelessness.

For after the silence comes the storm...

...and this storm would rock the world.

DEATH

COULD

NOT

HOLD

HIM.

Silence. Broken.

Précieux (Precious)

Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art... It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things that give value to survival. ~C.S. Lewis

What makes something precious?

What is it that gives something such inestimable value that it is lauded enough to place upon a special pedestal for the world to gaze upon in wonder?

What gives someone such value?

Is it shared experience...the catch of mutual laughter, or the bond of a deep unfettered grief?

Is it the miracle of unity...the way that two people can look across a room, catch an eye, and feel the same little rush from head to toe and back again, without a single word shared?

What is it that brings simple, everyday objects to such a place of requirement in our souls...in our hearts...?

Is it the whisper of legacy behind a father's tarnished pocketwatch?

Is it the memory drawn forth in honor of a friend who made his way to heaven before us?

Things of value are few and far between anymore.

Everything is now. Everything is needed right at this moment.

Legacies are fading fast. The need for things that are precious...the sweet pain of memory and recollection...it is melting into the woodwork faster than we can hope to catch it in fleeting fingers.

But I refuse.

I refuse to let memory fade. To let things become commonplace. To let the mundane overtake the remarkable.

More than ever, we need our precious.

Precious friends.

Precious memories.

Precious joys, precious pain.

Life is precious....

...don't let it slip.

God gave us memories that we might have roses in December. ~J.M. Barrie

Primavera

If I had my life to live over, I would start barefoot earlier in the spring and stay that way later in the fall. ~Nadine Stair

I adore spring.

If I had my way, we would skip all other seasons and live in a perpetual state of freshly budding flowers and 75-degree days.

Spring is beauty personified. Everything is springing up from death into life.

It is nature's greatest art form...God's most precious masterpiece.

It is fresh strawberries and bare feet buried in soft grass.

It is gentle breezes and holding hands by the lake, wind-swept waves caressing over lover's toes.

Spring is strawberry lemonade and frozen treats, just enough to send a tiny shiver up my spine.

It's driving with the windows down and my sunglasses resting on the bridge of my nose, the A Fine Frenzy playing just loud enough to make me shout and the wind warm as it musses my hair.

It's as if God poured all of His love, elegance, and passion into this perfect season...three beautiful months of serenity, whispering rain, and teasing breezes.

This is the season of Holiness...the season where death's sting became a distant memory and its power was lost forever.

The season of blood, splintered wood, and iron nails.

The season of empty tombs and "He is not here, for He is risen."

Spring is the season of life. Renewal. Redemption. Resurrection. Restoration.

Spring is my bliss...

...and I can't wait to find it again.

And [the angel] said to them, "Do not be amazed; you are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who has been crucified He has risen; He is not here; behold, here is the place where they laid Him. ~Mark 16:6

Return

Pick a star on the dark horizon / And follow the light / You'll come back when it's over / No need to say goodbye... ~Regina Spektor, The Call

Yes, this is another post about Narnia.

And I'm not even a little bit sorry.

To be honest, I didn't plan on writing another post about this magical land that has inexplicably woven its spell over my heart and soul.

But then I went to the blog of a friend and read her newest post (which you can read at http://avoiceofpraise.blogspot.com/)...and that set me off again.

Because there, in her own post on the land of Narnia, she opened another tiny wardrobe door to my soul...this one not quite as happy and fanciful as those in the past.

It was the idea of never going back.

For as much as there is a sense of beauty and passion in each visit to Narnia by each little group, there is always that moment...first tasted by Peter and Susan, and then heartbreakingly continued with Edmund and Lucy...

...that moment when they are told "you will never come back to Narnia."

To be honest, Peter and Susan's final moments in Narnia never struck such a wrenching chord in me as those of Edmund and Lucy.

Perhaps it is because Peter and Susan never seemed to need Narnia the way that their two younger siblings did.

Peter was the oldest. Proud and strong, the High King. Once there, he immediately staked his claim as a King. It was almost as if he didn't need anyone else.

Susan was the oldest girl. Beautiful, gentle, and beloved almost immediately. In fact, her pride never died, and she was the only one of the four who, once home for the final time, abandoned Narnia entirely.

It was Edmund -- the broken traitor, the forgiven one. It was Lucy -- the innocent one, the first believer, the one with the closest connection to the Great Lion Himself. These are the two that needed it more than anyone else.

And they are final of the Kings and Queens to be told that their time had come to its end.

But I will never deny that Aslan had a plan. I will never take away His credit. He knew what He was doing.

He knew they had lives to live, futures to embrace...and he knew their time in their own world would be short-lived.

For soon, they would come to Him forever.

They would pass through the Shadowlands in a loud and twisted train accident...they would pass over the silver wave, and come to Him forever.

They simply had to wait.

And while their first visits were beautiful, this final resting place was beyond all words and all imagining.

So for myself, I will visit Narnia while I may...reaching out fragile fingers from this world to the other, touching only the barest corners...

...patiently awaiting the day when I will crest the silver wave, and make my home in Aslan's Country forever.

I wait for the dream to end.

I linger at twilight...for I cannot wait for the morning.

It started out as a feeling / Which then grew into a hope / Which then turned into a quiet thought / Which then turned into a quiet word. / And then that word grew louder and louder / Until it was a battle cry. I'll come back / When you call me / No need to say goodbye...Regina Spektor, The Call

Poem

Poetry should... should strike the reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts, and appear almost a remembrance. ~John Keats

I've had an obsession with poetry as long as I can remember.

Ever since I was a little girl, I have been pouring over old, leather-bound volumes, lost in the elegance of the poetic word.

I don't know why the deep and extremely graceful words of poetry have caught my heart the way they have since my youth. It's not something I can really explain, any more than I can explain my love of chocolate or horse-hair paintbrushes.

Maybe it's the openness.

Poetry has an intimacy that prose simply cannot touch.

A strange sort of melodic power unlike any other written form.

It's curious, really.

Prose, the telling of story or the recording of facts in a narrative fashion...it has a magic all its own. But poetry...the incredible flow from line to line, the whisper of thoughts and dreams once hidden, now laid bare.

Both are magic. Both are intimate.

But only one

Can break the rules,

Change the game

And still hypnotize

The soul.

The smell of ink is intoxicating to me - others may have wine, but I have poetry. ~Terri Guillemets