A special day today. I have put in the last assignment for graduating from Boise State on time, it is Cinco de Mayo, and it is #GivingTuesday for #IdahoGives. Again I am supporting the Wyakin Foundation - www.wyakin.org.
Easter Lily is obviously thriving, having served as my focus point for the last several weeks since C-virus appeared. I knew I needed something to take care of, something that represented life, something to take my mind off of this walk that we are all walking together into the unknown. Some of us will survive, some have already made their transition, and some believe it is all just a hoax.
Some of us will come out of this with profound change, while others may not. The choice is always ours.
This past Easter Sunday was probably the first Easter Sunday in my entire life that I was not sitting in a church somewhere. That’s over 60 years of sitting in a church on Easter Sunday! I listened to the minister at the church I attended while living in California, as I often do here in Boise, and he spoke of the three days that Jesus was having a #TombTimeOut. Something I had never considered before, as I have just always thought that he lay dead in the cold, and then arose with no one seeing him. I had never once considered what his thoughts might have been while in that space between life and death.
That talk has stayed with me, and I would like to think that I have made the best use of my #TombTimeOut caused by C-Virus. I have stayed steadfast in finishing my last classes, doing my best to ‘change the world from where I am at’ with my work on veterans mental health, and staying strong.
But the TRUTH is I have been enveloped in fear as well. Fear of the unknown, fear of losing friends and family, fear of not being able to handle all that this life can wash upon my shore.
So I stuck to watering my Easter lily and my Peach Tree pit. Being careful not to leave the plants out in the cold, being certain they had water, and sharing my caretaking love on two plants. The Easter lily passed through Easter with me, and now has a new life.
Two other little plants have sprouted, and I am just letting them grow. I don’t know what they are, and now that I am done with school I intend on identifying them, as well as planting a little seed garden. Now that I have some time on my hands.
The peach tree pit hasn’t sprouted, and I haven’t watered it for the last two days, but I haven’t given up. I watered it today, and hoped that it would sprout, but the seed was already opened and the growth had started when I had opened the peach, so I do not know what to expect.
Just like in life right now, I do not know what to expect.
Yet, I want to start expecting miracles, and step more out in faith than stay wrapped up in a blanket of fear. Perhaps my little peach tree pit will sprout. Perhaps I should unbury it and see if it has any growth. Google ‘growing a partially sprouted peach tree pit’ and see what is required. Trust that God has brought me this far, through so many other and different scary times, and to pay attention to what He is saying during the rest of my #TombTimeOut. For I want to leave my mind’s burial wrappings in the tomb, just as Jesus did. Can you even begin to imagine what his conversation with the Father was about?
We all lose our faith at times. We all stumble. We all face adversities. Experience great joy. Suffer great sadness. Feel like we deserve more.
But God cannot live where fear resides, one of the hardest lessons we learn in this life.
The miracle of Jesus exists in his #TombTimeOut.
Remember that.
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