Easter is my favorite holiday. I really think it just became my favorite in the last year or so, but it is indeed my favorite holiday. It's my favorite because it reminds me of the reason I live, the reason I am the person I am today, and the JOY it is to live under the care and rule of my Savior. Easter is GREAT.
Last year I spent all of Lent getting ready for Easter. It's the first time I've ever done that, and it was amazing. This year, I didn't do such a good job at that. Today, it was Good Friday. Last year on this day, I gave up so many things that had been holding me prisoner, and I felt amazingly free. I actually literally felt chains fall off of me and a weight lifted from my being when I laid down my burdens on the stage.
This year, I was asked to do the same thing: lay down my burdens and let Jesus take them. The problem was, I hadn't spent all of Lent preparing myself to let go of the weight around my shoulders... and I just couldn't let it go.
Why is that? Why do I want to hold on to things that keep me weighted down, that keep me far away from my Savior's grace? Why do I chose to live life in such a way that I refuse to accept His love and care every day? I don't know the answers to these questions, unless "sin" is a good answer.
Not being able to let go really frustrated me. I wanted to be ready to truly celebrate Easter, with a free and joyful heart. I discussed this with Philip when we got home, and he suggested something interesting: doing our own Lent - starting now. Celebrating our own Easter in a few weeks, when we're ready to let our old burdens die and be buried at the cross so that we can live in the freedom Christ gave us on Easter morning.
I can't say I "lived" Good Friday this year. I couldn't fully let Christ take my sins. I needed them for some absolutely ridiculous reason for a few more minutes, days, weeks. I could not commemorate the Good Friday I needed to have to celebrate Easter.
Ask me again in a month or two, though. Maybe Phil and I will be celebrating our Good Friday and Easter in May.