By Kelly Carr

There are moments, days, weeks at a time when you are plodding along through life, not thinking about it. You don’t plan to disassociate. But it just kind of happens. 

Then suddenly, recognition dawns upon your mind and heart and soul and sweeps you right along with it. 

It might arrive in the big moments: when your doctor says you have cancer; when you hold your baby nephew and count ten tiny fingers and ten tiny toes; when you sit, brokenhearted, at a loved one’s funeral; when you stand at the ridge of the Grand Canyon and consider the wonder of its depth. 

It might arrive in the little moments: when your mom calls to tell you some funny piece of news; when your boss notices the hard work you’ve been putting in; when you get stuck in traffic but then your favorite song from your younger days comes on and you rock out without worrying about the staring faces in the windows nearby.

During or just after those big or small moments, you sense it. Small at first, but then in crashing waves around you—the earth-shattering, jaw-dropping magnitude of God’s grace.

Dabbling Along the Edges

At least, that’s how it happens to me. True, each week my mind is drawn to the cross as I partake in communion. I think of my sin and the pain Jesus endured for me. However, I’d say that the full scope of God’s grace doesn’t always strike me in those moments. Sometimes, yes. But sometimes, I dabble along the edges of the mystery without immersing my soul in the truth. 

I don’t always dwell upon the miracle of the resurrection and the unfathomable idea that I worship a living Savior. I don’t always allow it to sink in—just how humbling it is that the God of the universe would have a plan in place to rescue feeble, weak, underserving humanity. I don’t always see that each life-giving breath in my lungs owes itself to the Lord of all, recognizing that my very existence clings to his mercy.

In the everyday moments, I can keep calm and carry on but forget the honor due to the one upon whose favor my every heartbeat rests.

Peering at the Gift

In the victory of today’s resurrection celebration, there is a gift. We open it in childlike anticipation and peer in. 

Inside we see eternity, spread out in incomprehensible splendor. Such a promise is too much for our minds to conceive. 

We also see our time on earth. Our length of days is yet unknown to us, yet it remains part of the gift. For just as we long for the day when we would see the King face-to-face, we also look around and discover that we are part of spreading his kingdom here on earth. 

As all people were offered redemption through the blood of Good Friday—from Adam and Eve until the last soul residing in the unknown end of time—we thank the Almighty for caring enough to offer hope through the empty tomb of Easter Sunday. 

“The grace of the Lord Jesus be with God’s people. Amen” (Revelation 22:21).