So frequently I write about the hard moments, the difficult times. My journals, this blog, are full of the times when I have to remember just to breathe. It feels important to write about these times, to name them, to try to find words that describe what often feels too awful to fit into words. It helps to write about them – they are never as scary nor as big when I can fit them into the right words. It feels important to write about the times when we feel like we are all on our own, like no one has ever felt the way we do right now; and when we’re scared to death that they might never end . . . 

And there are other reasons for writing about these times as well (especially here in this space). Anne Lamott writes, “Everyone has been having a hard time with life this year; not with all of it, just the waking hours,” and that seems to be true in the world I inhabit as well. Three of my friends have broken off relationships with people they really like (love) and care about (or had those relationships broken off for them). My classmates know teenagers with brain tumors, relatives with cancer, and friends who are dying far before they are old and grey. The community I live in is struggling with the dryness of Lent and the hopelessness of feeling lost in the desert. 

So there are many reason, I think, for writing about these times, for naming them and claiming them. 

But . . . while I still experience these moments and suffer with my friends as they survive the blistering, dry heat of the desert, these are not primarily the moments, nor the world, that I inhabit right now. I am living more frequently in Resurrection Sunday than in Good Friday. 

Why is it so much harder to write about these times? 

There is irony here: it is easier to write about the hard times and harder to write about the easy times. I don’t want to abandon my friends or gloss over the real pain in this world. I don’t want to be smug in my joy or obnoxious in my goofiness. 

But I’ve been struggling a lot with Resurrection lately – what it means, what it looks like, and how we are to make sense of it today. While I’m still not sure, I’m starting to think that if I don’t write about the joy-full moments as well as the pain-full moments, I am failing to bear witness to the good news that I see. 

So let me tell you. 

I see good news. 

I wish I knew how to describe it in a way that felt as accurate as the words that name the hard times, but I haven’t found the right words yet. But I know kind of what it feels like. It feels like the sun came out after being gone for far too long. It feels like laughing when you have no good reason but you just can’t stop and you’re a little worried you might pee in your pants. It feels like a whole new way of seeing the world that you simply weren’t capable of before. It feels like a gift. 

It makes you want to do happy dances. It makes you goofy and makes you grin a lot. It is a sense of perspective where you know the world isn’t going to end, no matter how badly you do on a paper or how yucky the weather is or how messed up a friendship feels. It feels like a lot of energy and a lot of joy bubbling up. 

The Gospels stories ask why we look for the living among the dead. I will answer boldly that is because I believe in resurrection. I believe dry bones can be brought to life. I’ve seen it happen in my own life. 

I don’t know why there are hard times and desert times. They often strike me as a little (or a lot) excessive. But I believe in resurrection and the possibility of new life. I believe it will be better than we are able to imagine in the middle of the desert, where survival was the best we could hope for. 

And I know the joy of the promised land, when you have wandered in the desert, is sweeter than honey and tastes better than the best chocolate cake. 

I know there will be more deserts, but for now – I’m fully enjoying the promised land and living what feels like a resurrected life.