orbit of the mooneys: easter

this year for lent, i gave up dessert. if you know much about me, then you know that what i really gave up was chocolate. i'm not the type of girl that goes for an apple pie...i'm more of a candy bar, chocolate ice cream, oreo, brownie kinda girl.

day 2 of 40 of lent was the most telling. it was that early in this thing that i discovered how much i lean into sweets on wild days with my little ones.

naptime not going well...grab an oreo. (or 3)

lots of timeouts today... how 'bout i make some cookies.

an index card is on the wall above where i currently sit. it's one i've had since may of 2006, when i was pregnant with eliot and first found out he was sick. i wrote it in cursive, using blue and green sharpies because i felt Jesus speaking it over me in the midst of so much confusion and i didn't want to forget it later.

it says "today, I am all you need. today, I am enough".

day 2 and my eyes were opened that in this season of life, i have not thought Him quite enough. oh, i think of Him all the time and i never one time doubt in these beautiful, wonderful, trying days of momminess, that I need Him...i can't escape my desperation for Him. i just have slipped into thinking that i need Him and something else. God used lent to surface this in me.

easter has been so profound for me the last few years. mostly, Jesus moves in ways in my heart that i don't even attempt to express. easter is one of those.

the first easter after eliot passed away was almost 6 months after we told him goodbye. that year all i could do was think of death overcome. and yes, it meant heaven and eternity, but it also meant that when Jesus overcame the grave, all my darkness overcome by light and hope springing forth from the empty tomb. my mouth still gapes open in awe of the truth of this. oh death where is your sting.

other years, it's shocking grace. the awfulness of not just sin in general, but my sin. face to face with the passion of His love and scum of my sin and my default just thinks i should do more good after i've failed. make it up to God, somehow. or that He should really punish me. and then easter comes and i see the One who took my punishment and it blows up my works-based junk and i sit still in the ash. unable to move or blink because i am paralyzed at how radical grace truly is.

but this year, easter was about victory over death and it was about His payment for me and it was also about freedom. broad places of freedom.

i really did it. i went without dessert for 40 days. it shouldn't have been that that hard, but it sorta was. there were days that i had hot chocolate and wondered if i was cheating. and i had to buy valentines candy for preschool. and we went out to dessert with friends at my favorite crepe place. and it wasn't easy and a discipline was cultivated in me and it was good.

and then...

easter weekend snuck up on me.

i had tried hard for 40 days.

i had worked. and it wasn't for approval. and i fully realize that giving up dessert is not part of levitical law, but on the weekend that we celebrated the cross, the death, the resurrection i was free.

and i didn't just go eat a twix, i got godiva.

i was free to eat and enjoy. and it was a little thing but it pointed to a big thing that took place at the cross. real freedom from sin and death and real freedom to eat. to take in all the goodness of the love of God through Christ, for nourishment to soul and joy to the tastebuds.

so i ate and it was good.

freedom.