Good Friday

Growing up in Ohio, Good Friday was really not much different than any other day, except that Mom would try to make us eat Cream of Wheat with raisins (her favorite way ... our LEAST favorite way) and we'd have rice, in honor of Aunt Peg. Other than that, I really don't remember Good Friday being anything special. We still went to school. We still had to work. Stores were still open. Life was the same, and sometimes there would be a special evening service in our church in Norton.

When I moved here to Canada, I was caught off-guard my first Good Friday here. It was announced the Sunday before that we'd be having Good Friday services at church on Friday. Neat! I thought. But then Fred told me that since he wasn't working on Friday, we should plan something special in the afternoon, unless we had our family dinner that day. Huh? Why would he have off? Why would they plan a family dinner that day if there was a Good Friday church service to go to? I'm not sure when I realized that EVERYTHING was closed down on Good Friday and just about EVERYONE had the day off, AND we had our Good Friday services at 10:30 in the morning! Ten years later, I'm still thrown off by that, but I go anyway.

The other thing that throws me for a loop is that the Easter weekend here is handled about the same way as Thanksgiving weekend. Families pick and choose what day they want to celebrate together. In the States, Thanksgiving is on THANKSGIVING! You don't sit around and say, "Ok, do you guys want to have our family meal on Thursday, Friday, Saturday or Sunday this year?" NO! You have Thanksgiving on THURSDAY! DUH!!! Well here, Thanksgiving is on a Monday (which TOTALLY throws me off because I'm ready for another three day break after that!), so every year we go through the same thing, "When do you want to have Thanksgiving? Saturday? Sunday? Monday?" It happens again now at Easter time. "Should we have Easter on Friday, Saturday, Sunday or are any of you off on Easter Monday? Maybe we should do it then?" I always thought that Easter was on EASTER! I guess not.

This whole picky-choosy mentality for holidays is quite unsettling for me. I love predictability and this is NOT predictable. Yet, despite my mental mess-up every holiday as we try to decide what day really is the holiday, I'm thankful that the REASON behind the holidays never varies! It never changes or becomes more or less significant because of the date it is celebrated. The facts are the same. Jesus WAS born ... so we celebrate Christmas. Jesus DID die ... so we celebrate Good Friday. Jesus DID rise again ... so we celebrate Easter. We are exhorted to give thanks in everything ... so we celebrate Thanksgiving. I love that God's word and His love and who He is never changes. That predictability is very comforting to me. I love that He changes not. I can count on Him. I know where to find Him. He is my rock.

Go ahead and keep messing with my head when you change the date for Easter every year and when we decide to celebrate Thanksgiving in October on a Monday (or maybe a Saturday) and when everything shuts down on a Friday so that we go to church in the morning for a Good Friday service. You can mess with my head and throw me off of my calendar, but you can't take away my security in Christ!

Have a wonderful Easter weekend everyone ... whenever you celebrate it! HE IS RISEN!