Easter Thoughts

Happy Easter everyone! Although I enjoy Christmas time a lot , Easter is a celebration that brings new beginnings and great hope. I always enjoyed Holy Week in college because of the great rebirth the Church goes through.

But this morning I was also thinking about how Mary must have felt during this time. How hard it must have been to lose her child and even worse to see him die in such a horrific way. Throughout the Bible she showed such incredible strength and this was someone who was so young.

This leads to me to what I have been pondering a lot this week: Strength. I often recalled the saying "God doesn't give us more than we can handle". I always thought this was true and often turn to it when I think my life is getting a little rough. This week, though, I couldn't quite understand why God thought I would be strong enough to go through everything I've been going through the last three weeks. (I can't believe it's only three weeks, it feels so much longer than that.)

And by the way, in no way am I comparing myself to Mary or her hardships. I realize there are so many others out there that have it so much worse than I do, which is a reason why I'm able to remain so positive.

But nonetheless, it hurts and I feel sad sometimes. I often find myself asking why? Why would God want me to handle this? Why did He think I could?

Then this answer came to me: maybe I couldn't handle what would happen if things didn't turn out this way. What if things went to term only to find out something was terribly wrong or I'd be forced to make decisions I am incapable of doing? This seemed like a revelation to me. Although this event has hurt me and made me sad, it IS something I can handle. And possibly something much more difficult was avoided because of it.

It doesn't make this any less difficult to deal with, and I'm not sure it's the correct answer, but it does help me find peace with it.