You may know the heartache and feelings when one of your closest friends or family members passed away, yesterday. You wake up the day after, and it’s up to you to handle the responsibilities of planning the funeral, the burial, notifying relatives, and figuring out what to do without them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You are expected to hold yourself together by treasuring the memories, while being courageous and brave when you just want to sit and cry boatloads of tears. Life will never be the same again. You look around, and everyone around you is just fine. They’re laughing, they’re carefree, they’re going on with their busy lives, and you think, “How could they be so happy when I’m hurting so much?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Today is the in-between day of our Savior\u2019s agony on the cross — one of the cruelest methods of execution ever practiced. His dead body is in a tomb \u2013 sealed and done! But then comes tomorrow — Resurrection Sunday — the day when all HELL had to break loose of what it thought was its captive. I hear God saying to us \u201cHold on, My Children \u2013 joy comes in the morning!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But this day, I\u2019m still fixed on what happened yesterday — fixed on the \u201cOld Rugged Cross \u2013 the emblem of suffering and shame\u201d, but most importantly, represents our Savior\u2019s great love for us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The cross! What once represented an inhumane, torturous death sentence, is now a symbol of love. That\u2019s why I am rarely seen not wearing one of my precious cross pendants or cross earrings or a bracelet that dangles a cross. The cross is my \u201cStatue of Liberty\u201d as one old song proclaims.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While I cherish my \u201cjewelry\u201d crosses as expressions and symbols of my faith, I\u2019m not quite sure I like the cross Jesus referred to here: \u201cThen Jesus said to His disciples, \u2018If anyone desires to be My disciple, let them deny themselves\u2026and take up their cross.\u201d Matthew 16:24.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When I hear the words, \u201cTake up your cross”, I know He means suffering, opposition, humility, dying to self, staying silent when that\u2019s the last thing I want to do, being a servant to others, and carrying burdens that are often too heavy to bear. But I know without the cross, there are no crown wearers in heaven. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
We all must carry our crosses in this life. Doesn\u2019t sound like a ticket to Disneyland, does it? But, it is so much better. It is a ticket to joy, peace, faith, hope and eternity with He Who paid the ultimate price for our salvation. What God offers is the promise that He is with us in our suffering; that He can bring good out of it and that one day He will put a stop to it and redeem it. The cross is God\u2019s way of saying we are not alone in our suffering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The cross reminds us we have a great high priest Who sympathizes with our sufferings and was tested in every way we have been. The One who provides us strength is the same One who shares His victory with us. When He rises from the grave — so do we!” None of us are without crosses to bear, but all of us have the opportunity to know the Savior Who promises us a FOREVER with Him. It\u2019s not Disneyland, but FOREVER-Land.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hold on, dear ones, JOY COMES IN THE MORNING!!!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
You may know the heartache and feelings when one of your closest friends or family members passed away, yesterday. You wake up the day after, and it’s up to you to handle the responsibilities of planning the funeral, the burial, notifying relatives, and figuring out what to do without them. You are expected to hold…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17837,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[12875,1210,3845,1769,12056,9554,873,26411,12876,3669,2520,3308,17024,40,13780,3310,8199,12878,3291,1700,22936,16821,26412],"class_list":["post-17835","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-agony","tag-blog","tag-brave","tag-christian","tag-courageous","tag-disneyland","tag-easter","tag-heartache","tag-hell-broke-loose","tag-high-priest","tag-hold-on","tag-holy-saturday","tag-in-the-middle","tag-inspiration","tag-jewelry","tag-joy-comes-in-the-morning","tag-not-alone","tag-old-rugged-cross","tag-resurrection-sunday","tag-statute-of-liberty","tag-take-up-your-cross","tag-the-cross","tag-treasure-the-memories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17835","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17835"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17835\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17844,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17835\/revisions\/17844"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17837"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}