We Will Rejoice!

“This is the day the Lord has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.” Psalm 118:24

Oh, glorious day! The past few days have been days mixed with sun and clouds with an occasional shower. April is known for its showers which bring May flowers, but this year has been a little unusual. The May flowers arrived before the April showers, due to our mild winter. Many times things don’t turn out the way we expect them to turn out. We often form pictures in our minds about the way we think things will work out in the grand scheme of things; and then they turn out totally opposite of what we thought the end result would be.

Today is Friday, April 13^th, and my mind is returning to Friday, April 13^th, 2001. It was a day to become etched into the very core of my being and never forgotten. It was a day that turned my life and that of my family around and spinning. The day we observe as Good Friday, fell on that day, on that particular year. 

This was the day and the year that my children and I received the news that my husband (their father) had a tumor the size of a grapefruit in his right lung. We knew that he was ill, but this wasn’t at all what we were expecting to hear. Our world was crushed that day. Life as we knew it would never be the same. We had hopes and ambitions that would never come to fruition, in the way in which we had anticipated. The darkness of that day was the darkest we as a family had ever experienced and it was Good Friday. It was Friday the 13^th. I can’t even put into words the crushing pain of that day! I remember that my husband couldn’t tell his mother and sent me with that horrible news. I walked to her house, my heart pounding and blinded by the tears. It wasn’t until I mouthed those words, that the dam broke and I sobbed uncontrollably.

My mind turned, as it does this day, to the disciples of Jesus. Their Lord had been crucified and things hadn’t turned out the way they thought they would. They loved Jesus and he had been taken from them. All their hopes and dreams were crushed that day. They were experiencing that horrible pain of loss, which one can’t even describe in words. They were full of fear and anguish, with an uncertain future. I was thinking on that particular Saturday, in 2001, of what it must have been like for them. I didn’t know what was going to happen either and was filled with fear and uncertainty. It was the message of Easter which gave me the strength that I needed to make it through the days to follow. I remember still, standing with my husband and children on that Easter Sunday. I remember how the words of those Easter hymns and songs took on even more meaning….

“Because He lives…

      I can face tomorrow…

 Because He lives…

    All fear is gone…

 Because I know…

  He holds the future…

Yes, Our Lord lives! He takes away our fears…because we know He holds the future!

Things didn’t turn out as I had imagined they would in my life.  My husband and I had many plans, dreams and thoughts concerning ministry and other things. It wasn’t according to our plan for him to die so young, before things were fulfilled in our lives. It was the same with the disciples. It may be the same with you as well. Maybe things haven’t turned out according to the way you saw in you mind or dreamed it would happen. Our God is not finished with us yet! He is still working out His plan in places where we don’t see.

The day of which Psalm 118 speaks, is the new day that our Lord and Savior ushered in through His death and His resurrection.  It is a day which He has made possible for us to enter, through the remission of sins, by the blood of His New Covenant.

We will rejoice and be glad in it!

To be continued…