The End of the Story

So this is the end.

Palm Sunday is here, with Good Friday on the way and Easter on its heels. My 40 days are finished today. 

Good Friday. I was going to say I used to get it confused with Black Friday, way back when I was a kid. But the truth is I got them confused a couple weeks ago.

It's not that I think Good Friday's the ultimate shopping day. It's just that crucifixion doesn't seem like a good day. 

Of course it was good, but it was also a seriously hard day: the night before, sweating blood and the kiss of death. Abandonment, jeering, and beating. Brutality, vinegar, and finally - finally - the release of death.

All of that, for all of us.

And as Lent is coming to a close, and so is our fast. I'll write when I have something to say, and you'll drink a cup of coffee or log onto Facebook or eat a king-size chocolate bar. And we'll smile because we did it.

Some of you did Lent perfectly, and I'm giving you a digital high five for it. Me, I did it imperfectly - 40 days give or take, minus Sundays and a Friday here and there. And that's enough.

It's enough because my kids have seen me writing, and they're writing, too. Princess scrawls notes in her kindergarten script, and Little Man keeps a journal. It says, "Private! Stay out!" on the cover. But he reads it to me and wonders if it's too harsh or if it sounds ok.

I tell him it's great.

I love that they're writing, and I don't care about the spelling, and they picked it up without being told. They picked it up because they saw it. They saw me typing, and they decided to write.

Full disclosure: This is an old picture.

Part of me thinks it's terrifying to raise writers. (How do you know which stories they'll tell?)

But then most of me knows it's a miracle to raise writers. Stories only survive if they inspire a storyteller.

For me, Lent has been stories. The good, the bad, and the ugly - they all live because they've been told. This is a small space, and these are small stories, but they're told, and this is the thing:

They matter because Easter is the season for stories - yours and mine and Christ's together. It's a story of sin and sacrifice, of grief and resurrection. 

And that story doesn't end with death, but with life -
the life we live to tell it again and again.

Ready for Easter,
Becki*