This Easter sucked.
Big time.
And I feel like a bad Christian for even thinking it, yet alone saying it.
Easter is a time when Christians focus on the death and resurrection of Jesus. It's always there in the back of our minds, songs and sermons, after all, it's the event our faith is based on, but at Easter it becomes front and centre. Rightly so! I think it is wonderful that it makes us think more purposefully about such an important event. Last year, all I could focus on at Easter was Mary and how she had to watch her firstborn die. This year, my focus could not get away from the little sayings people use:
The day death died.
O death, where is your sting?
Death has been defeated.
Etc, etc.
I know that people have been using little phrases like that since, well, probably forever. And one of those sayings is a Bible verse, so I'm not against them entirely. But this Easter, it didn't seem to me that "death had died" or that death was in any way defeated. Because on the way to church on Sunday, we stopped in at the cemetery where my firstborn is buried. That is where death's sting is.
Death to me is not dead.
I see it when I look at my daughter's photos - the only photos I will ever have of her.
I am reminded of it when I look in my car's back seat and see only one car seat, not two.
I feel its power when the ache in my heart comes out in my tears.
Death to me is not defeated.
The Christian faith is about more than little statements or catchy phrases we use to summerise the most significant event in history. I know that. And I do believe that one day I will see Ariella in Heaven, alive. I believe that one day there will not be any death, pain or suffering. But right now there is. And as a result, Easter without my baby was just too hard.
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