It's Sunday, but Friday's Coming

On the trauma of Facebook memories

Photo by Roman Martyniuk on Unsplash

There were two pictures of my daughter Joy in my Facebook memory today, accompanied by a gleeful caption celebrating the fact that we were at T-Minus 9 days from leaving Turkey...

Or so we thought.

The minute I absorbed the memory, my stomach tensed. Coming up on three years to the day we first attempted to leave, and my body is still keeping the score*. I’ve gone to counseling, spent deep time in prayer, and engaged in thoughtful and healing conversation with wise loved ones.

And still…

When confronted in an unguarded moment, my stomach can clench, my body tense up, my mind stroll through unpleasant scenery.

I did what I’ve learned to do—I bent over and talked to the Lord about it for a minute. Rehearsed for myself what I know to be true. Reminded myself, “It’s okay to feel this. We know what happened on Friday, but Sunday happened too, and it’s okay to pause and allow ourself to feel it.”

June 12, 2022 was a Sunday. A particularly awful day when, one inch from the finish line, a distinctly gruesome marathon unexpectedly and indefinitely extended itself. And June 24, 2022? A Friday. A day of the parting of governmental Red Seas, of celebration and victory and relief.

And in between? A little bit unspeakable, but also kind of like being burned at the stake but you don’t always notice the pain because Jesus tied Himself to the stake right beside you.

I’m reminded of a line of thought I’ve been engaging in for the last few Easters regarding that old spiritual cliche’ — it’s Friday, but Sunday’s coming. You see, I grew up blazing past Friday, ignoring Saturday entirely, and running straight into the Resurrection celebration of Sunday morning. He is Risen — He is Risen Indeed!

But what I can’t get out of my mind the last few years is that on that particularly awful Friday night, the disciples didn’t know—or maybe better put—didn’t understand, that Sunday was coming. They lived through Friday, Friday night, that long, long Saturday, and waking up again Sunday morning thinking, “Surely, this can’t be true...”

And only then did Mary Magdalene come running up to the door with the good, good news.

For me, for the rest of my life, this cliche’ is going to be flipped—it’s Sunday, but Friday’s coming. Hold on. Keep going. In the words of my now six-year-old, “Perseverance, girl!”

Are you here with me in the long, long in-between? Do you also remember and celebrate victories, but daily reckon with the fact that the Sunday, or the Friday, or the Tuesday afternoons actually happened as well?

Do you need to sit here together and remember with me for just a minute? Let’s hold space for each other and allow ourselves to pause the scene—really feel it, taste it, smell it. Now remember, or maybe imagine, precisely where Jesus was in that moment. Can see His face? Is it right up next to you because He’s allowed Himself to be tied to the same stake, pitched into the same foaming sea, crushed by the same heavy load? Look at His face. He’s right here with us.

God. With. Us.

Thank You, Jesus. Thank You for being with us on that Sunday, that Friday, that Tuesday afternoon. Thank You that we can let these memories matter, and then let them pass. And thank You for the victories that taste a little sweeter each time we pull them out and sample them, as we look to You and wait together for that final, glorious Friday…

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*The Body Keeps the Score: fantastic resource on understanding grief and trauma, and the body’s reaction to them.

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