Mourning to Morning

I consider myself a night owl.  The past eight years of working full-time while homeschooling have somewhat solidified that label, as the late-night hours when the house is quiet are some of my most productive times.

But there’s just something about mornings.

When the blue of night begins to brighten and the sky comes alive in golden hues, everything you see is washed in rays of hopefulness.  The past is passed, and what lies ahead is newness and opportunity.  Morning is the introduction to the day ahead, and a reminder that we’ve got life to live.

All the more on Easter morning, the very day that defines new life.

Morning does not bring about the promise that things will go the way we want them to.  After all, there was a morning on Good Friday too.  Sometimes morning gives way to dark clouds and frightening storms – to loss and grief that cause our hearts to cry out for God to rewind it all back to yesterday.  Instead, we feel Him faithfully beside us, leading gently forward.

Though there will be mourning, there will also be morning.

Every Easter Sunday I watch the sunrise from my daughter’s grave, up high on a hill overlooking the harbor.  When I’m there I remember the mornings of the hardest days – the day that hello was followed too quickly by goodbye, the day I had to go home without her.  But I also rejoice in God’s presence, manifested in the beautiful display of morning.  And I thank Him for the opportunity to celebrate that miraculous morning at His Son’s grave when the world was forever changed.

Morning is coming.

The inevitability of morning points us to the promise of Jesus – that He is who He is.  That He lives.  That His love holds us through the darkest night, carries us into the next morning, and stays. 

May our hearts find hope in the morning, the resurrection of the sun, and the returning of the Son.