Expecting Sunday

An Easter thought arose in my mind yesterday after receiving a sweet friend's kind note. The note was a warm touch from someone dear to me that knew exactly where I was in life and sought to tell me that he supported me there. I think we search our whole lives for people that will support us and encourage us even at their own expense. Anyway, that's another day. This day is about Easter, blessed Easter.

I woke up Easter morning feeling anxiety. I've had the feeling ever since I got back in town from Mississippi. I went to MS for spring break for Hurricane Katrina relief, but that discussion will come soon. Transitions from long trips or back to reality are always difficult for me. Anxiety comes with the territory. It's more of a time will heal issue than an need to talk it out, but I'm deviating from the real issue at hand. I read life words in a short phrase that this friend wrote. He said that we'll all have our Fridays, but take hope because expect Sunday to come. So much meaning packed into that small phrase. We'll all have our Fridays- those days that are deathly, terrible, blinding, beating and draining. Those days that we can't get up to save our lives and we feel defeated. Those sad days or the day nothing goes right and every good intention turns bad and is taken wrong. Those days. Then there's Saturday- the day that we wait. You are probably all too familiar with those days- the day you get really impatient because you have no clue what God is doing or where He is because He should be acting or at least being vocal about His intentions (or at least this is what you're irritatedly thinking). Those days you run around with no direction and feel like you've hit a dead end and life hangs on that next step if only you knew what it was and it's so frusterating because you honestly would follow God or so you think if He just directed you.

Then there's always a Sunday. Easter Day. The Day Jesus Christ rose from the dead and declared freedom to all the captives. The day sin was overcome and we were fully able to reflect the image of Christ to God as He stood in our very place and cancelled our debt. The day that's glorious and you're pretty sure nothing could possibly go wrong. Even the few minor hiccups of people's doubts or misunderstandings don't bother you because it's a great day. The kind of day that shouts freedom and simplicity. The day that everything is clear and your way is steady and sure. The days that give you a renewed sense of rest in Jesus and satisfaction and contentment. Those days, those great days.

But ya know, in my 22 years of life I've found that it's the Fridays I'm most thankful for. The days that are hard and trying, the ones that I'm not sure I'm gonna make it through. Those are the days that I learn my need for a mighty Savior, one who will never leave me or forsake me. One who walks alongside me on that particular Friday I'm having and says, "Cast your burden on me for I care for you" or tells me that He will never give me any more than I can bear. So I feel privileged on those hard days that God has declared me strong enough to withstand what He has given me and that I am being refined to be more like Him.

Without the Fridays we wouldn't continue to die so that we can live more like Christ. In all my life I hope that I continue to thank God for Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays that this life brings.