Day 20

My Healing Season is the Spring because my parents died in April.
The hardest time of my Healing Season has been Easter time. The last time I saw my mom and dad was Easter Sunday of 1999. They came into town on Good Friday. We had dinner, we hung out at their hotel and played in the pool with my daughter on Saturday. On Sunday morning they went to church. My daughter and I stayed home and watched Veggie Tales Rack, Shack and Benny. After church they come to my small bungalow and we all ate a beautiful Easter dinner with everything our family enjoyed. We had Kabob, rice pilaf, kibah, grape leaves, yogurt and cucumber salad, green beans in red sauce and baklava. It was wonderful, as I recall. It was also our last supper. None of us knew.

Today is Good Friday.

My dad had a Good Friday tradition, when I was a kid. He would take the speakers and put them in the window pointing out. He would BLAST the soundtrack to Jesus Christ Superstar and trim the olive tree in the back yard.
No one was allowed to talk to Dad during that time. He would sing at the top of his lungs. He would sweat and work. He would weep. It was beautiful and reverent. I will always cherish that memory.

When my father died in the tornado, my brother and I went to the place where the house used to be and we searched for anything that we would like to keep to remember our family. My beautiful brother was saved and I wasn't yet, but I swear to you on my parents grave that in that search, I followed the Holy Spirit and the prompting of the Lord to find what needed to be found. Say what you will. This is true.
The Lord guided me across the street to the place where (I found out years later) my parents bodies were found. Do you know what I found there? The center of the Jesus Christ Superstar album. All the vinyl was gone, the cover was missing. There in the sticks and leaves and debris was the very center of the album. I bent do to pick it up and as I looked at the telling picture of two angels, back to back arching toward heaven, I began to sing. "Try not to get worried. Try not to turn onto problems that upset you. Oh, don't you know everything's alight. Yes, everything's fine. And we want you to sleep well tonight. Let the world turn without you tonight. If you try, you'll get by, so forget all about us tonight." And I feel to the ground and wept because I didn't want to let the world turn without them and yet-I couldn't stop it.


Today is Good Friday. Today we mark the Crucifixion of Jesus. Today we note that while He hung on the cross and before He breathed His last, He asked "My God, my God, Why have you forsaken me?"

This actually gives me hope because I realize that Jesus being fully God and fully man still asked what I ask. "God WHY? Where are you?" Just now I'm reminded that was the Lords question to Adam in the garden. "Where are you?" It's also true that the question is directly linked to Psalm 22:1 "My Lord, my Lord! Why have your forsaken me?"

Yet, God is good.

Why did you take them, Lord? Why?

Truth is my heart, although I can say in truth is healed, still asks that question.

When I received prayer at home group on Wednesday, we prayed that the Lord would should me how to accept pain in my life without returning to a broken heart.

Today is Good Friday. I read through all the Gospels. I wept and could barely speak to do my radio show at the pain and brutalization the Jesus endured. I wept and and could barely speak to think that He did it for all of us. I don't understand and I can't understand and yet and so grateful that I cannot HELP but weep. Even now there in a lump in my throat and my heart aches. Yet, healing remains. By His wound and through His mercy I am healed and I bless His most holy name.

No one could have gotten me here, no Shiva or Krishna, or any Native American Ritual. There would have been bandages and flash lights when I have the amazing privilege of unity with the most High healer and Son. I know in my bones, He is the savior. I know it. He saved men. He continues to.

Blessed be the name of the Lord.

Prayer:
Jesus. Thank you for you healing. Thank you for your love. Thank you for your sacrifice. Thank you that you were willing to suffer so that I might have peace. God, there are no words. Help me to life in that truth. Help me to share that good news. Help me to remember the truth of your cross and the fact the because of it, we are free.

Scripture:
But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Romans 5:8