🌅 Resurrection: Risen Hope, Even Now.

Year of Breath: An Easter Care Package

My youngest son’s imagination is robust. Whenever he invites me to sit on the floor to play with his superhero action figures, he gives me a front-row seat to a childlike wonder. He gives his characters elaborate backstories.

And if a villain attacks, BOOM! The superhero doesn’t stay dead!

Easter is the crux of the Christian faith. We celebrate with deep joy, knowing that as dark as the nights leading up to Easter morning were, Jesus did not stay dead.

With glad and sincere hearts, we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ, rejoicing that life has conquered death.

The reverberations of this miraculous truth echo into eternity. 

May this Easter care package speak hope into your heart this week.

Tiny Resurrections

From my new book Every Season Sacred:

When we look around at the tiny transformations and resurrections that happen within us and around us, we’re reminded afresh that we can trust Jesus’ resurrection.

We see that all beautiful transformation into new life, from what we see in nature to what we experience within our souls, comes from Christ.

“This New Newness breaks into our lives through Christ,” Makoto Fujimura says in Art + Faith. “Christ’s death on the cross is a new beginning; Christ’s resurrection is a new beginning.”

As we observe the Lenten season and approach Holy Week (which is its own invitation to be enveloped in darkness), may we reflect on the “New Newness” that is to come.

Borrow This Prayer

Every Season Sacred is a weekly journey through the year, featuring readings, breath prayers, scripture references, family connection questions, and family liturgies for each week of the year.

The liturgy below is a short excerpt from “A Prayer for Spring” in Every Season Sacred.

Thank You for the ways

You whisper millions

Of tiny resurrections

Into our lives

Every day.

Help us to live as an

Easter people,

Delighting in Your creation

And the newness of life.

Awaken us from our cocoons,

And transform us

Through all the transitions

Of life together.

Songs for Resurrection: Easter Playlist

Borrow This Easter Prayer

This is from my first book, To Light Their Way. I hope it resonates with you.

From my book "To Light Their Way"

You can return to this prayer throughout the year. The full prayer is on page 158 in the Holidays & Holy Days section of To Light Their Way: A Collection of Prayers and Liturgies for Parents. It’s available wherever books are sold, and I hope it will be a companion for you throughout the coming year and beyond.

This Week

Just as kids seem to have an innate sense of imagination, they also seem less resistant to celebration than their grownup counterparts.

Watch young children at a birthday party: You’ll likely see them squeal with delight, dance unashamedly, and giggle with contagious laughter.

In light of the love that they feel, they seem to radiate a deep sense of joy.

In light of Jesus’s triumph over death, we can be like children, throwing off the weight that is not ours to carry and rejoicing in our belovedness.

We can remember that even when we are most exhausted, we can hold onto the hope and promise of new life.

We can exhale, receiving the newness of life over and over again. 

Much of the Christian faith is a mystery. We can not explain our way into something that can not be explained.

Living as people of the resurrection means embracing imagination—acknowledging that there is more to this life and the next than we can fathom.

Consider how you might embrace a robust faith inspired by the faith of a child who inherently believes the audacious mystery of a death that conquers death, who rolls away the stone, and BOOM! – comes back to life.

• In what ways might you also be inspired to celebrate and worship the way children do?

• How can you live into the hope that Love has the final say –  today – and in the days to come?

• How might your parenting habits be resurrected in light of the love of Christ?

There’s still so much more below for Year of Breath subscribers for Holy Week.

For Holy Week and Easter, I’ve put together more robust editions of this newsletter for everyone to read. If reading the above ministered to you and you have the means to subscribe, I’d appreciate your support of this work.

Like every week, our Year of Breath private community below features intentional breath prayers, Scripture, reflection prompts, and a phone wallpaper/lockscreen.

Year of Breath subscribers, keep reading below for the rest of this intentional care package.