Another holiday.  Oh how we hate holidays this year.  We miss him more than words could ever adequately express, so I won’t even try.

Easter means so many different things to so many different people. It means Easter egg hunts, Easter baskets, bunnies, baby chicks, Easter dinner, baked ham, and deviled eggs. It means we are free from the wages of sin, we can receive eternal life because of Jesus’s resurrection, and rejoice because Christ has paid a debt that we could never pay.

But this year, Easter means simply this to me. Easter is forgiveness of my past, power for my  present, hope for my future.

Forgiveness for the past: so grateful for forgiveness this year as I have remembered so many things I wish I hadn’t done, forgiveness for things I wish I could do over, do differently. It’s all been forgiven. The regrets, the wrongs, the short comings, the apologies that will never be spoken.

Power for the present: power to get up in the morning. Power to keep on living. Power to trust. Power to live without fear. Power to love again and again and again. Power to rejoice. Power to live with joy.

Hope for the future: hope of eternal life. Hope of reunion. Hope of seeing him again. Hope of spending more time with him than apart from him. Hope in the grieving, because of what’s to come.

Easter today, more than ever before, is simple. Easter: forgiveness of the past, power for the present, hope for the future. Grieving with hope.