It started this morning where I left things on Friday morning at 2:30am. I sat in the darkness on the porch. As a storm was blowing in, I could feel the shifting wind and see the trees being pulled. I have not felt rain yet, but I know it is coming. The metaphors are not lost on me. The hardest part of my Holy Week “retreat” was trying to find the experience of this morning that was honest and true to where I find myself today, and yet marked that even in the midst of the struggle, there is a message of new beginnings.

There is not one bit of trumpets and white shoes that felt authentic to me this morning. The very last thing I want to do is turn on a TV and “watch” Easter. Kanye and Mariah have not one thing on my quiet, dark, fire burning, uncomfortable and complicated inner quest for hope. So here I sit, in my “Equally Human” sweatshirt and plastic sandals to greet the sun.

After decades of being a good church leader, I know all the right songs to welcome this day. I have the playlists to prove it. And yet today they felt hollow and insincere. There was only one thing that felt holy today: authenticity. I have a few places that I go for these musical expressions. One of them is Audrey Assad. As I sat in silence trying to begin my resurrection experience, these were the only words that seemed to fit:

After everything I’ve had.

After everything I’ve lost

Lord, I know this much is true,

I’m still drawn to you.

Friends, that’s all I have today. I don’t have the ‘magic’ words that make it all ok. I don’t have all the assurances that have felt so black and white in many seasons. What I know, what I really, really know is that I cannot walk away from the reality of the pull toward something so strong I cannot explain it. The best way I know to describe it is gravitational. It holds me down. It keeps me pulled to center. I cannot see it. I cannot explain it. Most days, it is confusing and frustrating. There are days that I want to escape it. But I can’t. Because there is a deep, deep, deep drawing that brings me right back.

So on this day of resurrection, I will celebrate that pull. I will not fight it. I will not run. I will sit in all the discomfort and questioning and lack of answers and trust that this act of stillness is the exact kind of new life that was intended for me on this Easter Sunday.