plugging into the Power

Easter has been my favorite holiday for years.
Good Friday-contemplating the love of God for mankind 
Saturday- knowing Sunday is coming, is a day of anticipation.
Sunday-recognizing and celebrating the power of the Resurrection.

This year it is especially powerful for me. Lately I have been remembering where I've been emotionally, mentally, physically and hormonally the past two years. It shakes me.  Based on past experience, I should be immobilized, or, at best hobbling; I should not be enjoying life, finding things to look forward to with glad anticipation.

Menopause had been slowly taking a toll on me and hit me like a sledgehammer, taking me out for awhile in 2012. 
A car accident in 2013 that left me with a fractured wrist, fractured ankle and fractured sternum took me out for a season.
Bill's death 8/29/14, by human measure, should have taken me under.

I have looked death in the face-
(and I grieve,"but not as those who have no hope.")*
I am living in the aftermath of losing "my other half"-
( God made us one,"and the two shall become one flesh")**

I know that I am weak, far too weak to stand on my own.
The only explanation I have for continuing to walk, 
for the healing that is taking place,
for the reason I live in peace, with joy, in hope
is the resurrection power of Christ at work in me.

Is this life easy? No.
Do I ever feel overwhelmed, "on the brink"? Yes, good and bad.
But I know that there is more to this life than what I see-
I know that God is working.
I know the end of the story.

"...'Death is swallowed up in victory.

O death, where is your victory?

O death, where is your sting?'

The sting of death is sin,

and the power of sin is the law.

But thanks be to God,

who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ."***

*1 Thessalonians 2:13-14
**Ephesians 5:31
***1 Corinthians 15:54-57