It’s been a hard day.

That seems like an awful way to start a blog post, but it’s the first thing that comes to mind, and also? It’s the truth.

Last night, a few minutes after the Good Friday service, a friend asked if I had anything planned for the rest of the evening. I mentioned a thing or two, eventually ending with, “I know I’m supposed to write a blog post for tomorrow, but honestly I haven’t started it yet. I know what God wants me to say, but I’m not entirely sure how to say it.”

And then I went home and did everything except write a blog post.

It’s not easy to talk about the hard stuff, the story-lines we never would have chosen.

Garden of Gethsemane prayer (photo take by Kaitlyn Bouchillon)

Encouragement for if you need to know your story isn't over...

I woke up thinking about the confusion, heartbreak, and silence of Saturday, the great in between of Good Friday and Easter morning.

As the Church, I think sometimes we’re a little too quick to move from pain to promises fulfilled, from questions to answers, from broken to mended, from Friday to Sunday. Personally, I’ve found that most of my story happens in the in between. It’s where He asks me to trust and believe in the middle of the pain, the questions, the brokenness.

And so is it anything but ironic that I began writing my book, the one titled Even If Not: Living, Loving and Learning in the in Between, two years ago on the Saturday of Easter weekend? (You will never be able to convince me that God doesn’t have a sense of humor.)

At the time, I thought I was drafting a blog post about living in the tension. I attempted to put words around the idea of walking in the darkness while carrying the Light. I admitted my personal battle with spiritual warfare and even wrote about the brand new, two-days-old tattoo marking my foot, the one that says “out of darkness, light.”

All the while, I had no earthly idea that those very words would sit untouched, drafted and left in a Word document for several months, only to one day be printed in chapter seven of Even If Not. Yeah, you know, the chapter titled darkness & light.

I thought I was drafting a blog post, but God had more in store.

Never place a period where God has placed a comma. - Gracie Allen

Last night, I thought I would write a post about the in between of Easter, encouraging you to say “even if not” while you wait for the page to turn.

But God had other plans for my day. Instead of writing about the message of my book, He asked me to live it out.

Right now, I don’t know what story the next page will tell. But I do know that I trust the Author.

It’s nearly midnight, which means Easter morning will soon dawn bright and full of hope. In just a few hours, I’ll put on a colorful dress and celebrate, arms raised in worship even if tears decide to fall. Because we know it, those of us living in Saturday: the story isn’t over.

Saturday teaches us to wait while clinging to hope when all seems lost. It teaches us to gather together and look for the light. And so that’s what I’ll do tomorrow, and I hope you will too.

Even here — maybe, especially here — we find that He is good, He is God, and He is working all things together for His glory and our good. For those walking through Saturday, I’m praying for you tonight. May you find Him in every in between.

An Easter prayer...

 

(If you would be willing to pray for health-related answers and peace for my family, I would very much appreciate it. Thank you in advance for understanding that some stories must first be lived out, for the most part, away from online spaces.)