April 4

Actually this week I feel like I’ve taken a giant leap backwards. Lots of tears, deep sobs like last year. I don’t know what triggered it, but wow…it has knocked me for a loop. I was warned by other widows…there is no timeline to the grief. There will be days…weeks…It will get easier, but it will never go totally away.

While I prayed this morning, bemoaning my loneliness and isolation, God brought gratitude to my mind. I had focused on my feeling of isolation, but then I began to consider this week. Saturday and Sunday, I spent time with my daughter Aimee, her children, Sierra and Sawyer, and had lunch with my daughter Jennifer. Tuesday, Vickie and Edna came to help with my flower beds. I love having flowers in my beds…don’t like doing the work to make it happen. Tuesday afternoon I spent with Donna, finding out about her trip to Mexico, and discussing my plans to travel this year. Wednesday, I spent with some ladies studying the Word of God, and then lunch. Thursday, I had lunch with Barb…it lasted four hours. Thursday night, I attended the Maundy Thursday service, focusing on the sacrifices that Christ made for us. And yesterday, Caleb and his father came by.

Norm mentored Caleb in photography. When we thought Norm would be better and able to go hiking and do photography again, he spoke of Caleb and the places they could go where he could introduce new techniques to him. Caleb told me some stories of their adventures, and how much he had learned from Norm.

Norm encouraged. Norm challenged. Norm showed the love of God to the people around him…usually with a touch of humor.

Tomorrow is Easter. I had planned to attend a sunrise service at Eagle Rock, however, rain is expected and so they cancelled. Usually they would just move it indoors, but some construction issues make that impossible. So I’ll go to church at the regular time, and tomorrow afternoon go to my niece’s home for Easter dinner.

In my quiet time, I’m reading through Hebrews and today’s passage mentioned Christ, as the true high priest, taking his blood into the heavenly Holy of holies to give His blood so that our consciences can be cleansed from dead works to serve the living God.

Norm used to have an illustration he used to explain what Christ had done for us. We will all give an accounting of our lives. We have a sheet of credit and debit for what we have done and said in our lives. We think our good will outweigh the bad we’ve done, and we might get into heaven by the skin of our teeth. But in reality, we have all sinned and come short of what God requires of us.

The payment for the wrong things we have said, done or thought is eternal separation from God. So one day, we will all stand before the judgment seat of God, and while He does not desire that any perish, the sin is there and the debt must be paid.

Back to the accounting sheet, Satan is the accuser and when we stand before God, he will be bringing up every infraction, and while God is a loving Father, he is also a righteous judge.

When we recognize that we are unable to keep God’s way perfectly, and we acknowledge that Jesus paid the price for us, then our credit/debit sheet is swapped with Jesus’. He died on the cross, shedding his blood to pay the penalty of death, and we receive his righteousness to our credit. Because of the actions of Christ, we receive eternal life with God. That is our hope, and that is the joy of Easter. Death could not hold Jesus. His sacrifice on the cross opened the door for us to be in the presence of the Lord forever. His resurrection proved that death has no more hold on us.

I am thankful for many things today. For God’s faithfulness as I walk this road. For Norm’s influence on my life. For friends and family who continue to be there for me. For Jesus who died and rose again.

I pray for grace to be encouraging and also challenging to those around me.

I rejoice in Jesus Christ, his death and resurrection that gives me hope.

Where’s the joy? It’s found in the hope that we have in Christ.

But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation) he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption.
For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God. 15 Therefore he is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance, since a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant.
For where a will is involved, the death of the one who made it must be established. For a will takes effect only at death, since it is not in force as long as the one who made it is alive.
Therefore not even the first covenant was inaugurated without blood. For when every commandment of the law had been declared by Moses to all the people, he took the blood of calves and goats, with water and scarlet wool and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people, saying, “This is the blood of the covenant that God commanded for you.”
And in the same way he sprinkled with the blood both the tent and all the vessels used in worship.
Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins. Thus it was necessary for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these rites, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these.
For Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf.
Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own, for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.
And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him. Hebrews 9:11-28