My Easter’s are quiet moments of the sacrament now. They are private. Filled with grief, reflection, joy, deep contentment and an embrace of alonneness.

This wasn’t always the case. It took four and half years to get to this secret space.

My family of origin and ‘in-law’ Easter’s felt fake. Shallow. There was no depth, no meaning for me. I often asked the question, “Why are we doing this? What is the point? What the hell does ham and mashed potatoes have to do with the resurrection? And what does the resurrections even mean? I have no emotional connection to this.”

It wasn’t faith and life being celebrated – it was blind religious tradition, with no sacred posture at the table. Only masks, the lack of depth and the status quo.

I felt wrong in my family, and could not stand the hypocrisy in my ex-husbands family. I was lost in a world of religion, adopted by what I was supposed to be and become. I played a role in every holiday, but was truly unseen and unknown.

The first year of my divorce and my first Easter alone was one of the most painful holidays I’ve ever experienced. I didn’t know how to be alone, I received an invite from my neighbor and spent part of the day with strangers. As I sat in appreciation for her hospitality I felt utterly lost with no belonging in sight.

I left their gathering, walked across the hall to my own apartment, closed the door, and went straight to my bed to hide under the covers. The only place that seemed safe. Upon waking hours later, I knew I needed to do something to celebrate Easter – but it wasn’t Easter I was honoring – it was death.

Ironically, Easter is all about Death, Renewal, and New Beginnings for New Life, but for me on that day – it was only death. Putting to death, in a ceremonial funeral of my own, the pieces of what I thought I had, but never did.

I thought I had a marriage that was fighting for union, healing, recovery and vulnerability – only to find out I was betrayed and lied to over a course of 11 years. I thought I had the best family of origin – I mean, I’m a pastor’s kid, our family is perfect right? The parents I thought I had, yet forced to acknowledge the effects of their own wounds. These were all being buried, wrapped in a shroud and tied in a lace bow.

I prayed over each of the wrapped items – “Let this die. Let this go. It’s not what you thought. Lord, please help me to lay this history to rest and to move on”

There have been 3 moments in my life where I’ve cried so hard, so loud to the point of exhaustion, and that was one of them. I call it ‘tormented weeping.’

And now, sitting here in the present I realize I was grieving the ideal and the reality – but deeper than those two contradictions – I was releasing the idea of love. It wasn’t love. It was betrayal. It was abandonment – dysfunction and abuse. Named as love, but a warped style of relating to me as a daughter and a wife.

I’ve written many blog posts on what love is, I desperately want to know it, explore it. As I read God’s words to me – I beg: “Jesus take me to love school… show me what you do and what love looks like and sounds like.”

Not an easy task to understand.

So this Easter, I sit staring out my front yard, asking the question, “How did I get here?” Having poor examples, deep betrayal and abandonment – even this year…. How am I still walking up right?

Love.

God didn’t abandon, emotionally neglect, criticize, speak harshly, lie, abuse, call names, deceive, nor ridicule. A man did that. A feeble minded man with divided loyalties.

God didn’t hold me to a standard of perfection, tearing me down when I didn’t meet it. He wasn’t judgmental, assuming, teasing at my expense or cruel. It was a woman. A woman who painted her shame onto my skin.

Love was not in these things, it was mere mortals. There deeds appeared as light, claimed light, but cloaked my life in darkness. They were not as they said they were. They were adversaries and deceivers. First hand victims of the Evil that touched them.

I can FEEL Easter this year, as the depth of my own redemption reveals new grace and understanding.

Despite the scars I carry, Love wins. Why? Because it is constant. It didn’t show up in the people who said they “loved” me, but it showed up elsewhere. It reveals itself in the moments I’m alone and soaking in new connections of my story and comforting words of others’ written stories. When I share a quiet cuddle with my dogs, or a friend helps me financially. Love comes when I witness another’s grief and share their burden, and it arrives in the people who show up for me in my own pain and suffering.

Love.

This word has new depth and warm feelings for me now in my solitude – during this, a season of life that is a complete question mark for me.

Jesus wasn’t the only one resurrected. I have been too. Resurrected from shallow tradition, hiding, wearing masks to survive, walking in light, knowing myself more each and every day, moving toward full embodiment in order to do the call that God has placed in my heart. I’m resurrected and will continue to journey through a thousand mini deaths and resurrections in my lifetime.

I have the best partner in this process. Love. It abides, comes close, it ALWAYS wins – because it ALWAYS shows up in one form or another. It was always there.

When God says, ‘I Am’, it is translated as “Ehyeh-Asher- Ehyeh” “I will be there, howsoever I will be there.” When the Israelite’s BEGGED for a King, Samuel anointed Saul at God’s direction, though God gave them fair warning that a King would enslave them, just as much as they were slaves in Egypt. God told Samuel, “They are not rejecting you as leader, you’ve done well – they are rejecting me.”

It later says, “GOD HEARD THEIR CRIES” and so He responded and gave them a king. “I WILL BE THERE, HOWSOEVER I WILL BE THERE.”

God is saying to them, even when you reject me, I will be there for you – I will still be there with you, I will fight your battles for you, I have MY covenant with you, I’ve made my promise, I WILL BE THERE.”

Love.

It is ALWAYS THERE. At the end of the day – when I am terrified about the loss in my life, the desire of my heart that’s not yet come to fruition, facing the reality of the future – I really just want someone to be there. I want someone to hold my hand as I travel through the dark valley. I want someone to smile with me when I celebrate a moment just as I want someone to see my hurt.

Love never fails and it matters the most. It doesn’t run from the fight nor keep to itself. It gives.

I have given a lot of love. Love to people who cannot receive it nor reciprocate. I gave my sustained blessing and hope – seeds were planted and I’m leaving this love with them for the Holy Spirit to grow, nourish and breathe its life of redemption.

Some day, I hope these ones that I love to depths of my bones, will be reminded that Love showed up when they needed it the most, and it looked like a woman who survived the worst neglect and abuse imaginable. Somehow – she knew how to give it and she chose them as the Lord chose her.

“We love, because He first love us”

When they remember this Love, I hope it connects them to the joy of Jesus’ resurrection and their own path of connection. I pray the Love I planted births true Shalom and a knowledge that they are WORTHY to be loved just as they are.

As I consider Love, there is no better way to describe it than with my favorite song, ‘Love Never Fails’ by Brandon Heath.

May the lyrics of this song lead you to a memory of one moment where Love said, “I will be there, howsoever I will be there”

Love is not proud
Love does not boast
Love after all
Matters the most

Love does not run
Love does not hide
Love does not keep
Locked inside

Love is the river that flows through
And love never fails you

Love will sustain
Love will provide
Love will not cease
At the end of time

And love will protect
Love always hopes
And love still believes
When you don’t

Love is the arms that are holding you
Love never fails you

When my heart won’t make a sound
When I can’t turn back around
When the sky is falling down
Nothing is greater than this
Greater than this

‘Cause love is right here
Love is alive
Love is the way
The truth, the life

Love is the river that flows through
Love is the arms that are holding you
And love is the place you will fly to
Love never fails you

You are not alone.

Rochelle Sadie