One year ago we found out that my dads cancer had metastasized and we only had a few months left with him. My birthday was a few days later, and I spent the first half of the day in tears, knowing next year at this time he wouldn’t be in my life anymore. My dad called me that morning and barely had a voice, but sang happy birthday to me anyways – I can still hear him singing those words like it was yesterday. I miss him every day, and am choking back tears as I write this. But in the midst of such grief, I also have deep, unshakable joy. This year for the first time ever, my birthday falls on Easter, and it couldn’t be more fitting. “Because of the joy awaiting Him he endured the cross, disregarding it’s shame” Hebrews 12:2

We were the joy awaiting Christ Jesus…eternity with us, his beloved children, was enough reward that he endured the most excruciating, humiliating, undeserved, soul-separating death imaginable. The cross was the cost of His love, and the cost of eternal love. That we get to spend eternity with our Savior, and all those we love who also profess Christ Jesus as their Lord.

This is how, and this is why, joy can co-exist with loss and grief. This is why we can call this Friday “good,” because death didn’t have the final say. Gods insurmountable love saw it fit for Jesus to die for our sins, so that love has the final say for all eternity! Cross = Love🤍