Mondays after a holiday are straight up the worst – especially with little ones at home. Can I get an amen? This morning was exactly that – bleh. This past weekend was a wonderful time filled with Easter egg hunts, Easter baskets, candy, food, family, and celebration. In fact, if I could call a day perfect, yesterday seemed exceptionally perfect. There was more than one moment that I just wanted to freeze time – I didn’t want the day to end. Everyone was in a good mood, my boys cheeks seemed extra squishy and kissable, our nighttime snuggles were extra long, and we laughed until our bellies hurt; it was all so perfect.

Monday of all Mondays

 

If this morning had a theme song it would be, “Back to life, back to reality…” Welcome to Monday. If I could just erase this morning from my memory, I would. My 4-year-old son, Caleb, has one job in the morning, get himself dressed for school. This morning when my darling adorable son walked out of his room, I handed him his clothes and said, “Good morning sweet heart, it’s time to get dressed; we have school today!” He then threw his clothes back at me and said, “But it’s still Easter! Easter is NOT OVER!”

 

This blissful tennis match continued on for…wait for it….45 minutes.

 

45.blissful.minutes.

 

“I’m NOT getting dressed! It’s still Easter! I’m not going to school!”

 

“Yes you are! If you don’t get dressed there will be a consequence!”

 

Did he not understand? I had a 9am meeting in Oak Brook, he had to be at school by 8am, my youngest had to be at his school by 8:20am – so much to do, so little time! This mama had an agenda.

 

After 30 glorious minutes of this tennis match, things got ugly. He cried; I allowed my not-so-calm-side to show.

 

When we arrived to his school, I turned around to see him getting out of the car with tear stains still fresh on his rose colored cheeks. After dropping my other son off at school, I frantically sped onto the interstate to rush to my 9am meeting. With my heart still racing from the stress of the morning, I took a deep breath. For the next 5 minutes I replayed the entire morning through my mind. As I watched this movie play out, the only words that kept rolling through my mind were…

 

You’re a failure.

 

If you were a good mom, you would have handled things differently.

 

He’s only 4 years old, of course he’s going to have a bad morning.

 

You shouldn’t have reacted the way you did.

 

You’re a failure.

 

But then I heard a New Voice. It was the same thing my son was saying to me over and over this morning, but this time it was the Holy Spirit.

 

Easter is not over.

 

It’s still Easter.

 

It’s true. Easter is not over; today is Easter Monday and the good news of Easter continues! Today, the Monday after Easter, we have hope that those who are in Christ can live the resurrection.

 

Transformed.

 

Made new.

 

Our whole lives must be articulated in light of the resurrection, even on a difficult Monday at home. It is in the resurrection that our bodies of death are forever changed, reordered, and transformed. In her book, Marks of His Wounds, Beth Felker Jones writes, “the Church will have to think corporately about how that eschatology must, if the Church is that of the Spirit who is Sanctifier, filter backward into our present embodied lives, making our bodies, in Christ, both a ‘living sacrifice’ and a ‘new creation.[1]” This embodied eschatology is the life invaded by the living God Himself, in the person of the Holy Spirit. It is by the Spirit that that the embodied person can live in the presence of God in Christ as she is being transformed into God’s glorious image.

 

Easter is not over.

 

It’s still Easter.

 

At 8:45am this morning I felt like a failure. But then the Holy Spirit reminded me that I am still being made new. My body doesn’t stay broken; rather, I can have hope that God has not only saved me and included me into the people of God, but God is still shaping me into holiness…even as a Mom. Day by day, the Spirit is leading me, transforming me, and empowering me to reflect the resurrection to come.

 

Easter is not over.

 

It’s still Easter.

 

Thank God. He’s not done with me yet.

 

 

 

 

 

[1] Beth Felker Jones, Marks of His Wounds: Gender Politics and Bodily Resurrection (New York: Oxford University Press, USA, 2007), page 87.

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