It’s a rainy, gloomy, gray day where I live. It’s fitting weather for this Easter.

I took my anti-depressant this morning at the usual time, but I’m not sure it helped me get through the first church service I’ve attended in a year. Or maybe it did since I was able to choke back tears rather than fall apart like I wanted to do.

I couldn’t open my mouth to sing. I hummed a bit, but I held back because I didn’t want to hear my own voice. I didn’t want to risk having the slightest bit of hope that I’d ever sing those songs again.

I listened to the message and somehow avoided an internal scoffing at the story of a savior who comes to rescue. My experience tells me a different story.

It wasn’t the church or the people that bothered me. In fact, if I were to go to church on a regular basis, this would probably be the one. My irritation was due to my own lack of faith in a story I’m struggling to believe.

Yesterday, I shared this on Facebook:

I was thinking this afternoon about the women at the tomb…specifically referenced in Luke 24:3: “they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.” Death is one thing–final. But this was something altogether different: a missing body. Confusion. Despair. Hopelessness. I thought about those who seek Jesus and the despair of those moments (sometimes years) when he cannot be found. The time between realizing he’s missing and him showing up to make his presence known seems like an angst-filled eternity.

On this day when Happy Easter and He Is Risen! is proclaimed, I’m still standing in the gray, in the middle—between his death and his presence. I’m still seeking and waiting for him to show up and call me by name. It’s difficult to have faith in a rescuer who’s MIA.