How do you describe one week?

Holy Week has always been a precious time to me.  When I say always, I mean it.  Some of my earliest memories are of carrying palm branches down the isle with all of the other children in my church and singing "Hosanna in the highest!".  I remember sitting in the dark on Good Friday, and I remember the smell of the lilies and fresh cut flowers on Easter Sunday.

No matter what is going on in my life during this special week each year,  there is a part of me that just "feels more".  When I hear a "rustle" in the trees, I can see palm branches and Jesus triumphal entry.
When I see people enjoying a meal, I think of how He must have felt doing the ordinary things of life that week knowing it would be his last time on earth to do them. When it was time for Passover how very heart-wrenching it must have been for Him, sharing that meal with His disciples, knowing He was the completion of the promise God made so long ago.  The complete redemption.  One year I drove by a construction site and heard the hammering of nails, and  wept ....just remembering.   When I take communion on Maundy Thursday it means so much more than bread and juice...it means that He completed the task, the sacrifice is complete. When It storms, I think of how the sky turned black and the veil was torn.  Would I have been scared like the disciples and hid, or been brave like the women and stayed at Jesus' feet....  hmmmm.

This year has been a year of trials and blessings. Joys and sorrows...   New life in our family, new challenges, new beginnings and running through it all,  there is hope and joy.  Why?  Because Jesus went before us, He took the bitter cup, survived betrayal, trial, the pounding of nails, the crown of thorns, death, a tomb and then, finally resurrection!! HE defeated death, darkness and the power it holds over us--- death doesn't get the final say!

Holy week to me is a time to remember, and in some small way, walk that road from Jerusalem on Sunday with the Palm branches, through the pain of remembering the Last Supper Passover meal, to sensing the agony of Good Friday and the cross and finally to feel the power of the Resurrection so strongly in my heart and in my life that there is no room for doubt, darkness or shadows...Just the Joy of my risen Jesus!