Good Friday

We spent Easter weekend trying to really sit in the magnitude of what those 3 days represented to our lives as Christians. On Good Friday, Micah and I decided to allow Ethan our oldest child to watch the movie "The Passion" with us. He is 10 1/2 years old and we thought that he was mature enough to handle what he was about to see. He has developed an interest in our faith that goes beyond just learning on Sunday, and I can see a spark light up inside of him when he hears mom and dad talk through biblical passages and stories. I also notice a small piece of me as a child inside of him. He has the same interests in history and humanitarian issues as I did as a child, and I am grateful for how my Dad took the time to cultivate that in me.

So the three of us watched the movie together and I couldn't help but glance over my 10 year old boy. He face was somber. Shear sadness enveloped his eyes and I could see that he was fighting back tears, as if he thought his tears would reveal that perhaps he was too young to watch this movie. Then as my boy (the boy who at this moment in his life has been struggling with respecting his momma) watched the poignant scene of Mary seeing her son carrying his cross and having flashbacks of Jesus as a child, I noticed a tear fall from his eye. He saw that I noticed this and he in turn quickly wiped it away. He snuggled up next to me and for a brief moment in his 10 year old life, my boy let me put his arms around him. In spite of his slightly rebellious behavior over the last year, my baby was telling me that he still loved me.

After the movie, we talked about how we needed to remember to grieve that night. I explained to him that we need to understand and remember the magnitude of the pain that Jesus went through. I told him that it was only through remembering that grief and feeling that heartache, that we could really understood the joy that would come on Easter Sunday.