Sunny Side Up March 30, 2005 �Kathleen Gibson, 2005 Easter's promise remains Late for church. Now that's a good minister's wife, I thought, kicking snow off my shoes. I'd stopped to shovel my front walk and lost my lead time. I could hear the Preacher's big bass voice leading in song� "On a hill far away, stood an old rugged cross�" Actually, our daughter - not the Preacher - was the reason I'd left my desk that morning to attend the Easter week service at a local care facility. Amanda would be preaching the sermon that day - her first. In training for ministry, it was her latest assignment. Moms attend 'firsts', when possible. Too late for a front seat, I sat at the back, across from two budgies twittering in their cage. Next to a parked wheelchair where a daughter bent near her mother, coaxing her to sing. Other voices raised too, reed thin� "So I'll cherish the old rugged cross, till my trophies at last I lay down�and exchange it some day for a crown." Amanda, more than eight months pregnant, waddled to the microphone. "Easter mornings always bring back to me memories of sunrise services and pancake breakfasts�" For a second my own memories surfaced. She became a child again. Honey-haired, smiling, singing her heart out at that very podium. I often brought both her and her brother here to entertain and visit with the residents. But seasons turned. She grew up - from child to teen to lovely young wife. Now she often shares a church platform with both the Preacher and I. Except she usually sings or plays piano - we're the ones flapping our jaws. She touched on the horrific events of the first Good Friday and continued, "Then came three days of darkness. Of waiting�" She paused, patted her watermelon belly, "You can see I know a little about waiting." A few chuckled. My eyes scanned the white heads. Some drooped. A few nodded. Others trembled, and many held very still. Strangely, I recalled the docks of my childhood where cargo waited for shipping. That's here, I realized. The last waiting point before sailing out of the harbor. Only - budgies instead of seagulls, orderlies instead of longshoremen, wheelchairs instead of forklifts. Waiting? These people held master's degrees in it. I watched the mother and daughter beside me. That may be us one day, I realized. Amanda and I. Another turn in life's ever-changing seasons. Daughters become mothers, mothers become children, and children - at least some - become ministers. And many of those seasons include waits - long, dark, uncertain. Amanda continued. "We celebrate Good Friday with the knowledge that Jesus is risen - He doesn't stay in that tomb! The one who is Truth, Love, and Life is alive!" She's right, I thought. Our seasons - warm, cold, bitter, sweet - they all pass. And even those who love God often wait in the dark. But how necessary to remember what Easter made possible! Resurrection! Trophies laid down, exchanged for crowns! Our interminable waits? Forgotten in the blink of an eye! Well done, my daughter. Respond Home |
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