Resurrection

I woke up Saturday morning to the sound of a mourning dove outside my open window and the news that my friends in Sudan were safe.

This morning, celebrating the Resurrection was all the more meaningful after the darkness of that good Friday. As I listened to the familiar story of the prodigal, I wanted to raise my hands and say "That's me!" I was dead, but I'm alive again; I was lost, but now I'm found.

Then this afternoon: more bad news, as a dear friend who's become my little sister shared the troubling report of her fiance's health concerns. For some reason I thought that after Friday there would be no more blood tests or frightening unknowns, no more wars or rumors of wars.

He's alive, and because of him so are we, but this world isn't our home; it's groaning for redemption. I won't bother trying to explain what I mean, since we sang about it this morning:

Clothed in flesh, till death shall loose me,
I cannot proclaim it well.
O that day when freed from sinning,
I shall see Thy lovely face;
Then clothed in blood-washed linen,
How I'll sing Thy sovereign grace!
- Robert Robinson, "Come Thou Fount"

He's risen indeed. Come, Lord Jesus!