The "Good" Part

I posted most of our Easter pictures on Facebook and will eventually get to posting them on here for those of you who only follow my BLOG.  But. I wanted to focus on the picture above that may not look like the best shot.

We had a resurrection Easter Egg hunt this year, as we have in the past several years.  This type of Easter Egg hunt goes through the story of Christ's death on the cross, leading up to it and ending in his resurrection. Each hidden egg is numbered and has a small symbol inside with scripture to be read along with it.  The final egg, is empty...representing the tomb.

This picture is a picture of Landon holding one of the symbols and thinking about Jesus.  He said, "That was a really bad day for Jesus".

His face at 6 astounds me.  I see hurt in his expression as he realizes the pain Jesus went through for us.

This year, our dear friends, the Smiths, did this hunt with us.  As Janise and I read through the story leading up to the cross, we looked at each other...when the scripture involved ears being cut off, hangings, physical torture, death...how do we "tame this down" for a 3, 4, 5 and 6 year old?

This got me thinking.  Though it is different when sharing the very gory details with our children, how do we, as God's children, wish the story was spared of such torturous imagery?

I know I don't like to watch the movie, The Passion of the Christ....because of that very reason.  I fear it will give me nightmares.  I watched it once and had to hide my face in my hands.

I don't like to think about what happened to Jesus.  Let's quickly get to the good part!

I am beginning a study now about stressing less.  The book is called Stressed-less living.  Today I was challenged to make a list of all the things that cause me stress, write down how they make me feel, how they affect my life and whether or not I have control of them.  Doing this was hard as my stresses took up two entire paged in my journal.  I felt myself rushing...I wanted to get to the paragraph we were supposed to read upon completing our list about how to fix it.  Let's get to the good part!

Then I realized that part of the good part is the bad part.  Isn't that true about the story of the resurrection?  Isn't that why we call the day Jesus died, suffered, was tortured, was treated less than a criminal..."Good".  I always wondered, why is it called "Good Friday?"  I think this year I really got it.  At 35.  It's "Good" because it's so bad.  Because that torture and absolute face-hiding story had to happen for Jesus to show his power, raise from the dead and save us from eternal separation from God, our Father.  Is there anything better?

So, I look back on Landon's little face.  He is getting it.  He is learning and understanding about God's unbelievably awesome love, power and grace.  He is also learning that we can't always skip over the bad parts...whether in the resurrection story, when I list my stresses and the pain they cause me, or when we endure any type of hardship.  But, because we have Jesus, there is always the "good part".

What an amazing concept that God uses our children to teach us, his children.  I am so delighted by my three  precious gifts and the humbling responsibility to teach them about Christ...while I continue to learn myself.