Empty //

If you were at our wedding, you might recognize this image. Our best friends asked us questions, each of us holding one of the others shoes, and whoever the "shoe fit" would raise it up.

This image I think is "who is the better driver..."

We got the classic and ironic couple questions, one of them being:

who wants to have children?

In good humor we both kept the shoes down, as my dad stood up dancing around with both of his shoes. If you know my family, grandkids are a majority of our mass numbers, and very dear to the hearts of all. But Bryant and I had agreed we had absolute no interest in having kids, for at least five years, for me, if ever at all.

If you follow this blog at all, then you know that has changed, quite drastically. It changed because a family was vulnerable enough to share their struggle of hope in the midst of loss. The testimony of courage in the face of great darkness brought an awareness of my own fears that had kept my longing to be a mother at bay.

Yet, I sometimes think, how much easier it was to not want this. To not want to have a child.

Easier.

Isn't that what we want? Life to be less complicated, we would do anything to keep from experiencing difficulties, to remove anything uncomfortable, don't we all want it to be easier?

Right now i'm working on a sermon series titled "Stations of the Cross", and the more and more I research the cross, the more and more and more I realize Jesus did not die on the cross to make things easier. If anything, the cross was complicated, the cross was difficult, the cross was uncomfortable. It was anything but "easier". But the cross was not the end, it was part of a process. I believe Jesus died on that cross, a most difficult and uncomfortable death, but that He walked out of his grave.

In all this, the thought entered my mind:

What does an empty tomb mean for an empty womb?

My thought is that it means:

outrageously complicated, painstakingly difficult, and excruciatingly uncomfortable hope.

I think it means that whatever happens, whatever that report from the doctor says, whatever is going on in your marriage, whatever the difficulty is you're facing with your children, your friends, your family...

DO NOT look for the easy way out.

Struggle through it, dig your hands into the dirt of complicated relationships, sit at the table with difficult circumstances and take the road that winds, dips and turns through your uncomfortable situations.

Because that's life, ladies and gentleman. And whatever it may be that life has tossed your way, instead of letting it take you out of the game, take a deep breath and grab ahold of the hope that was raised for you when Jesus rose from the grave.

It might look dirty, it might get uncomfortable, but my God how glorious it will taste on the other side. It may take days, months, years, or perhaps you might never eat of the fruit of your labor... and as tough as it is, hope is worth every drop of sweat, every mental battle, every stammered "let's do this", every time, hope will be worth it, it will not be easy, but it will be worth it.

Because the tomb is empty, so you can live full.