My blonde little girl has thin fly-away hair.

It’s gotten a bit longer (like Rapunzel, Mama!) and for a lack of better words, tangled.

It dawned on me the other day that I could take her for a HAIRCUT. Yes, we call this an epiphany in my neck o the woods.

I think in her mind she was getting hair extensions…still going with the Disney theme.

But, alas, no.

So, the stylist gave her a cute, stylish hairdo:

But when she spun the chair around, my little girl frowned and pouted and stuck out her tongue at the image in the mirror. “I don’t look like Rapunzel AT ALL!” she whined.

The stylist “Oh, honey, Runpunzel’s hair is too long. It’s drags the ground and gets dirt and bugs in it. Plus, she probably has lice!”

This lady was getting a tip.

I smoothed her hair and tried to smooth things over saying, “Ya know, honey, your hair is so pretty, it makes you look older and your new haircut sort of looks like my hair now.”

I gave her a toothy grin and nodded my head, reassuringly.

“Mommy, I’ve never liked your hair.”

Well.

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Don’t forget to honor your Mom in the name of mercy by ordering her a special Mother’s Day card. Deadline is ONE week from today!

P.S. I’m turning off comments a couple of times a week now. It’s not you, it’s me.

Through the Resurrection of Jesus, God made everything sad that had happened -the arrest, the accusations, the attack, the arrival of the cross-untrue.

Even death.

Jesus said, “I am the Savior and the Rescuer of the world.”

And we know, because He couldn’t stay dead, because Jesus came alive again, that somehow everything will be all right.

Finding Jesus is like discovering a hidden treasure.

Only better.

He is alive!

Happy Easter.

My son played his made-up game of tossing the sofa pillow up in the air, spinning once, catching it.

It was fun until he threw wild and the pillow ended up in the kitchen, landing on something beautiful, fragile, sending porcelain flying. I sucked in my breath and let out a heavy sigh and words.

Why is it the ugly words surface first, squelching the ones that come next? “It’s okay. I know it was an accident.”

After all, by the look on his face, his punishment was in the accidental breaking.

We don’t like broken things. Even with careful hands and strong glue, they are still broken, only “fixed.”

And yet, we live in a broken world. One that could not be fixed with temporary sacrifices and annual sin offerings. It’s a place where ugliness surfaces first.

There was only one way to really fix our broken world.

The loaf of warm bread is passed.

Pieces are broken, torn.

“My body is like this bread,” Jesus tells us. “It will break.”

But this is how God will rescue the whole world. My life will break and God’s broken world will mend. My heart will tear apart–and your hearts will heal.

The only way to heal the brokenness of our world was to break Christ.

God was going to pour into Jesus’ heart all the sadness and sickness and brokenness in people’s hearts. God was going to have to blame his son for everything that had gone wrong. It would crush Jesus.

And even worse than this –all the sin and sickness and ugliness–would be the separation from God. When we willfully turn away from him, choose to be separated. Jesus would carry that too.

He was born to be broken.

In the breaking, we would be fixed.

On this eve of good Friday, which really feels bad at reflection and then good again, I want to remember that day Jesus really fixed our broken world.

The air was strange, the sky shaded dark with shifting clouds and the earth trembled, colored like a bruise.

At His bruising.

The full force of the storm of God’s fierce anger at sin was coming down. On his own Son. Instead of his people (you and me). It was the only way God could destroy sin, and not destroy his children (you and me) whose hearts were filled with sin.

He suffered for our sorrows. He sacrificed for our sins. He silenced our sickness.

He died to be our rescuer.

He lives to mend our broken places,

so that we may glorify Him and help fix our broken world.

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*scriptures are from my favorite Bible