Easter

It's early on Easter morning, almost 2 am.  This is a time of year that I love dearly.  I love to reflect on the Savior's life, his lessons, and his love. This season brings to mind the greatest sacrifice ever made for mankind.  By willingly submitting to everything that was asked, Christ paid the price I will never be able to even remotely come close to.  He paid for every mistake I will ever make, every pain I will ever complain about and every situation that causes me to mummer against the Father.  He paid what can never be repaid.  Only received and used and shared.

I have been reflecting on receiving help today.  A lot.  I am not very good at asking for, let alone accepting help.  I am strong enough, smart enough, dense enough, or stupid enough to make it on my own.  At least that's what I tell myself.  The place I sit now has shown me how very dense and stupid I can be.  Eric is in jail, for crimes no one but the judge thinks he is capable of committing.  Crimes that my children dreamed up to get to their own ends.  I could go on about that, and I probably will in the future, but for today, he is simply gone.  I need him.  I have needed him for every thing I am for the last 10 years.  He has shielded me from my own frailties and weakness and made sure that my children and I were taken care of.  It wasn't always a walk in the park, but he was by my side every step.  Without him, I need help.  HELP.

How do you go about asking for help when all your life you have avoided it?  I am sitting here writing this at a kitchen table not my own, in a home not my own, where my children and I will sleep until we can find a place of our own.  I don't know how long we will be without our own home, and I've called us homeless, but, we are not destitute.  I have so many people that have said "we love you, let us help".  Let us help.  I have had to swallow what shreds of pride I've been holding onto.  It's not easy, and it hurts, a lot.  But as with the Savior, who offered us the help we need to get home, what good is that offer if we foolishly believe we can do it alone?  I need my friends right now, more than even I know.  I need to let them help me because I simply can't do this on my own.  I can't.

This Easter, the gift the Savior offers each of us is so HUGE to me.  He is offering us the help we need, if we know it or not, to get home.  Just as I am homeless without my friends who love me right now, in this very moment, so too will I be homeless forever if I don't willingly take the Savior's help.  It's a concept I thought I knew and understood.  I was so very wrong.

In the midst of my unimaginable life, with all scary nightmarish things that I seem destine to wade in the midst of, I know this:  I am not alone, I just need to let go of pride, and accept the offer of  help and love.  He will walk with me, Eric will come out the other end of this horror, and we will go on, hand in hand, with the Savior guiding us, to our forever.   This is what Easter means to me this year.  I am so humbled to know that Christ loves me enough to hold out his hand to me, even when in my arrogance I don't reach back.  He never has left me alone.  The only way I will ever be able to thank him, is to take his outstretched hand, and follow him home. Because in the end, being thankful for something is to use it for what it was meant for, not just view it as a pretty picture.

Happy Easter,