Today I wrote a note to a precious friend who’s daughter was set to enter the world March 29…the same as my sweet little Hannah.  I share simply because I feel it best captures today for me.

Today I wrapped my little girl up in my arms and grieved for you.  My heart ached as I thought of your arms open.  Longing.  Missing.
It hurts far too much to ponder why.  It hurts more than I know for you to put one foot in front of the other.
But today I found comforting moments, because today is so very both.  Today I celebrate and mourn.
I thought of the disciples.  Of the utter hopelessness and pain this day so many years ago represented.
I thought of His mother.  Watching her son, ridiculed, humiliated and now gone.  All the memories.  All the longing.  All the pain.
And I thought of the waiting.  The moment when all they thought He was seemed to crash to the ground.  The moment when they realize they will never hear His voice again.  That longing for one more story.  One more conversation.  One more adventure.  One more anything.  And oh the ache of thinking it would go so very differently.  He would be King.  Just last week He was RIDING on a donkey.  People were cheering.  The pain and agony and the awfulness was going to be over – He was going to overthrow it all and start God’s kingdom here on earth…
And I stay there.  Imagining we’re holding hands with tears in our eyes knowing that all of this perfectly sums up our journey together.  Strangers who became friends who have seen life and lost life and grieve because this was NOT the way it was supposed to go.  We know it in our souls – this just isn’t right.
Though I know the rest of the story – I find it appropriate to stay there with them.  To stare into the face of lost hope and doubt and questions.  Know that I am not, nor have I ever been alone.  I can think about your sweet little girl and I can think about my friend’s sweet little boy who died on Easter Sunday last year, one day after he was born.  And I can question and hurt and cry with you.
Oh how I pray Sunday will continue to come – over and over again in your life.  That death will be beaten.  FOREVER.  Fully here as it is in Heaven.  That your little girl WILL be in your arms once again some day.  That even in these moments – the resurrection would breathe new life into you.  But know that today – I stand in the Friday with you.  Realizing that I could not in my mind, at this point, with wounds so fresh, so painful, imagine something so beautiful as seeing Him again and Him defeating death.
You have my heart.  And today – may God hold your hands that feel far too empty.  May He carry you in His arms the way you long to hold your sweet daughter.  May He remind me of how He carries me as well.  And may the resurrection – the impossible and incredibly beautiful truth be ever so close to us both today.

I close with a picture of the precious birthday girl I love, adore and will now go snuggle and tell the story of this Jesus who gives us hope and is often writing a more beautiful story than we could ever imagine when it seems as though all has been lost…