FLAT-TIRE FRIEND

In my life coaching business, I’ve noticed an increasing, nearly universal grief. People are suffering from loneliness, not limited to the absence of a person. Clients express their sadness due to loss of routine, health, job, a role, money, a pet, dream, motivation.

The following is from my 2018 book, FROG Blog: Learning on a Lily Pad:

I sent a few Easter cards this week and just mailed one to a forty (plus) year friend. Allisa and I met when we were four and five years old. We’ve coasted along life’s proverbial lazy rivers and been rocked by white-water rafting currents. Allisa is a three-day Easter friend, an all-season confidante.

Allisa and I have faced Good Fridays: situational crosses, shouldering each other’s heart burdens up steep hills. We’ve been ‘Veronica’ to wipe tears and pluck thorns from our crown of dreams. We’ve spent Holy Saturdays seeking understanding, reconciliation and feeling the bitter stings of virtual crucifixion. We’ve celebrated mountaintop vistas and resurrected openings after dark boulders have moved.

Out of the Easter Triduum, I’ve learned that Saturday seasons are when I’ve learned the deepest lessons. I can’t wrap my head around the intense pain Jesus endured on Good Friday. When my Good Friday-like moments hit, I comprehend pain. It’s tangible. It’s a facial sucker punch.

I can’t fathom the magnitude of what people of Jesus’s time experienced Easter morning. I’ve been blessed with times of extreme hope, wisdom, joy, supernatural peace. Those earthly resurrections propel me. I feel like I can soar in the spirit.

However, smack dab in the middle of crucifixion and resurrection is Saturday.

How do I paddle through that seemingly lukewarm body of water? I can’t see beyond a past memory. I’m leery about hope for a better future. What about pain in the night but joy comes in the morning? (Ps. 30:5). What happens when morning after morning I wake with no sign whatsoever of joy? What do I do with that hangover of pain? How do I remain steadfast as I strain my bruised neck from Good Friday in an effort to anticipate Easter Sunday?

Whether I feel like it or not, I press into the promise from Hab. 2:3: “For the revelation awaits an appointed time; it speaks of the end and will not prove false. Though it linger, wait for it; it will certainly come and will not delay.”

Allisa and I are like Easter perennials grown in varied types of soil. We’ve been repeatedly tilled, habitually planted, and gratefully harvested. I pray you have or will find an all-season porch friend in your spiritual Easter basket today!

Lessons and blessins from a three-leaf lily pad, Christina

Readers! I’ve asked (aka prayed) that you will have someone join hands and walk with you along this sometimes-lonely road.

If there’s a way I can support you on your journey, please contact me via Facebook message at Christina M. Eder-Author

Kindly,

Christina