Have you ever had one of those days where you just feel defeated? I had one recently, a day in which I couldn’t shake the frustration of everything I just cleaned getting messy again, everything I just fixed breaking again, every lesson taught unlearned again. It was last Saturday that I had this defeated feeling. Interesting that it was the day between Good Friday and Easter, the day when we think of Jesus in the grave and His followers held captive by what must have been the most defeated feeling of all time. I could sort of relate to them. Of course the big difference is that I knew Sunday was coming.
One of the first songs I ever learned in church said something like, “That same spirit that raised Christ from the dead dwells in you.” I was too little to understand or care what that meant, but now it rocks my world to the core. It means that I may feel defeated, but I don’t have to live defeated. The power that raised Christ from the dead lives in me! It would be the understatement of the century to say that that’s a lot of power. But it is! And it’s there just waiting for me to tap into it. It’s not going to mop my floors or make my kids stop fighting, but it’s going to change the way I think about those things.
Life is defeating. It just is. As my husband reminds me, everything is in the process of dying, including us. Could there be anything more defeating than that? But that’s not the end of the story. Saturday is not the end of the story. Sunday and all the victory it brought with it—that’s the true story. Resurrection power living in me—and you—is the true story. And it’s my truth even when I’m up to my eyeballs in broken crayons and dirty towels and unmet expectations.
"I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead." —Ephesians 1:18-20a
