Easter thoughts

We're only a few days away from Easter, and I've been thinking about that first Holy Week.  Not from the standpoint of Christ or his disciples.  But rather from the standpoint of Mary, because, after all, I am a mom just like she was.  

Just 3 weeks ago today, I had my son.  I wonder, in those first weeks after Christmas when Jesus was so tiny and Mary so young and a new mom, did she wonder who he would become?  Did she gaze into his tiny features and see what was down the road?  

I imagine she didn't.  If she's anything like me, she was probably just overwhelmed with the moment itself - trying to bottle, to grasp, to hang on to the wonder of being her child's mother.  His weight in her arms, his smell, his newborn movements, his tiny toes...him.

Photo credit: Kathy Chase

I can relate to those thoughts and feelings she must have had after Jesus was born.  But then at Calvary, Jesus told his disciple John to care for his mother (John 19).  She was there.  What was that like for her, to watch her son's crucifixion?  What horror she must have lived through that day...  It's bad enough watching your child get a shot or kissing their scraped knee.  Imagine...  or don't.  It's too hard.

I look at my son and I wonder who he'll become.  What sort of a boy will he be?  What sort of a man?  And I know that I and my husband and the people with whom we surround our family will all contribute to who Connor will become.  But it's also true that he has a free will.  He will become, in a very real way, who he wants to become in spite of and not because of my best efforts.

I pray that he will be honest, kind, gentle, strong, brave, fun, funny, loving, and a man of integrity.  That he will know Truth and walk in it.  And these prayers I have can't really be very different from the prayers Mary had for her son, her Jesus, right?  I think they're the prayers of most mothers.

Photo credit: Kathy Chase

But simply that I pray them for him doesn't mean that he'll become who I want him to become.  Prayers certainly can't hurt!  But, again, he gets to choose.  So I think of Mary, whose son chose not to be with her, but to die for me, for my sins.  Did she feel betrayed?  How did she bear up under the weight of that grief?  Of burying her firstborn son?  What questions she must have had...

I celebrate Christmas, my favorite holiday, with such joy for her.  There was nothing but potential that first Christmas night - nothing but a blessedly ended pregnancy, labor and delivery resulting in new life with such promise.  The Promise.  Those things, we are told, she cherished in her heart.  And they had to have come flooding back to her that day at Calvary.

Did she wonder why she'd gone through it all - the shame of pregnancy outside of wedlock, the pain of birth, the years of investing time, energy, and all her resources into her children?  I imagine the thought crossed her mind, but she instantly rejected it.  It was all worth it.  Every second of lost sleep, every tear shed, every resource given.  Because he was her son.  HER son.

Maybe I'm wrong about that.  Maybe I'm way off base.  I don't ever want to see my children hurt or harmed, and I can only imagine what a fierce mama I'd turn into if I could ever get to those who might hurt them.  (I wonder what Mary would have done had she come face to face with Pilot or the Pharisees...)

But this Easter, I'm thankful, as always and yet again, for Christ's willing sacrifice.  It was a sacrifice he made that not only hurt Him (clearly), but also hurt those who loved Him, and He knew what He was putting them through as He did it.  And in hurting those He loved, it hurt Him yet again.  I'd never thought of that before now.

Thankful for Christ's sacrifice, yes.  And especially for the grace I get to know because of it.

Happy Easter.

He is risen.  He is risen, indeed!

My children after their naps.  They love their plugs!

A new favorite way to be held.

My little loves.