I was working from a coffee shop this morning with one of my best friends. You know, the kind who when they ask you, “How are you doing?” it’s like you were injected with a James Bond-style truth serum with no choice but to vomit all of the emotional baggage you’ve been carrying around for the last week, or month, or however long it’s been since you’ve processed your life in a meaningful way…

So there we were, and the question came, and I vomited.

The truth is I am so good, and so broken, and so full of gratitude, and so burdened. All of those things live simultaneously and that’s just related to the events in my own life.

Don’t get me started on what’s going on in the world, because I really don’t have the emotional capacity to fully understand how to make sense of it. When I get news alerts like the one from earlier today letting me know this country that I love dropped the “’Mother of All Bombs’” in Afghanistan, the largest non-nuclear bomb it has used in combat,” my heart grieves and breaks. This is not a commentary on war or military or violence, but rather a reaction to suffering and loss of life.

Anyway, I was explaining to my friend that I feel like my life is a seesaw. There are these weights and burdens dragging it down and I am intentionally, consciously, and unapologetically counter balancing those things with travel and snowboarding and friends – things that are life giving and bring me joy. Because there is something to the whole “choose joy” idea that I believe whole heartedly in. This life is full of heavy things – in my case, navigating life post-divorce and being responsible for the care of my dad who is dying – but there is a lever that allows me to lift things much heavier than I would be able to on my own. I can manipulate the amount of energy exerted to give rise to the burdens just like the fulcrum of a seesaw does. This lever is called hope.

Hope exists whether we acknowledge it or not. And this Holy Week is such an amazing reminder of it. That Passover is actually an invitation to join in the suffering of those still in bondage while celebrating our own freedom. That Jesus sacrificing himself on the cross was to usher in a completely new reality: a way to access peace and joy here and now while giving us the promise of a future without pain and struggle.

I not only acknowledge this hope, I cling on to it for dear life. It is my virtual life saver when the realities of my life threaten to drag me further and further out to sea.

Do you need this hope? It’s available for everyone. No questions asked. No prerequisites needed. Just a come-as-you-are invitation to a radically different way of experiencing the world.

If you’re curious or have questions, I’d love to talk with you about it. Or join me this weekend for Good Friday (Friday, April 14 at 7 PM) or Easter (Sunday, April 16 at 9 AM) service.

I promise that your seesaw will feel a lot lighter and will fly higher too.

[Image credit: ffden-2.phys.uaf.edu]