Easter Mourning

Easter is a tough one for me to process. Last year, I wrote this post, and it's still what I felt rising to the surface of my heart this weekend.

Something else happened between last Easter and this. I learned more about the Genocide of my son's birth country. I learned that it happened over Easter break. I learned that while the world wore bonnets and sang Allelulia, my son lost relatives and countrymen. Of course that was before he was born, but it will forever be a part of him, and because of that, it will forever be a part of me.

Easter demands I feel this despair. Without the Darkness, the evil and the Death, there is no power of Life. The resurrection teaches me that life is good, but that Life Restored from Death is something else. If I protect myself from the suffering, I deny myself a piece of the Allelulia.

Victory is meaningless if it is not hard-fought, over a powerful enemy.

This week, I mourn with the people of Rwanda for what they lost and what little we did to help. I grieve in hope that ashes are turned to beauty, death is turned to life, and that New Life is better than the one before.