From Hard to Holy: A Resurrection Reflection
Sand Lilies - photo by Elizabeth Watkins
“The winter is past; the rain is over and gone.
The flowers appear on the earth; the time of singing has come.”
Song of Songs 2:11-12
Resurrection Sunday! The glorious climax of Holy Week and the very heartbeat of our faith. It’s the day we gather across churches, cathedrals, and continents to celebrate the risen Christ—victorious over death, full of promise and power.
But if I’m being honest, this past week has felt anything but holy.
If I had to describe it in a word? Hard.
Some of you may remember my last post, where I shared about my daughter Charis’s broken leg. Well, following an MRI and her followup, we learned that her break was an avulsion fracture requiring surgery if she hoped to regain full range of motion in her knee. So, on Tuesday—smack in the middle of Holy Week—Charis and I headed into the OR.
As someone who once pursued a career in medicine, I’ve always found surgeries fascinating. I’d watched my own and even my husband’s without flinching. So I expected to be fine this time too.
But this was my daughter.
The moment they wheeled her away, I darted to the nearest restroom, locked the door, and dissolved into tears. I hadn’t anticipated the helpless ache of watching my only girl disappear behind hospital doors. And when she returned from surgery in obvious pain, my heart shattered again.
Still, we pushed on.
Then came the parking ticket—hundreds of dollars because I parked in a handicap space (out of sheer necessity), trying to care for Charis alone. Frustration mounted. Then the pharmacy delay—no post-op pain meds due to a miscommunication. We drove home empty-handed, relying on Tylenol and Ibuprofen while she cried in pain beside me.
That night, I thought I was ready for the long haul of caregiving. What I didn’t expect? My middle son Wyatt waking in the night, sobbing from leg pain and spiking a fever. I spent an hour consoling him before crawling back into bed—only to be hit with more the next day. Between a sick son, a post-op daughter, and a husband who came home early from work on Thursday also sick, I was holding down a collapsing fort.
On top of that, some weighty work-related conversations left me feeling stretched in every possible direction.
By Good Friday, I was emotionally spent.
We attended our church service in the middle of the day, and I remember the pastor teaching on Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane—how He prayed in agony, sweating blood, while His disciples fell asleep, “exhausted from sorrow.” The words hit home. I was exhausted too. And though I wanted to pray, to lean in like the pastor encouraged, I instead fell into bed at 6:30PM, fully clothed, and slept straight through the night.
I awoke to cold. Darkness. Snow.
Winter had returned—literally and metaphorically.
But as I opened my devotional, these words from Song of Songs greeted me:
“The winter is past...the flowers appear on the earth...the time for singing has come.”
It felt almost mocking at first. How could spring possibly be near?
Yet in that quiet moment, I realized: maybe the ache I carried all week was not so different from the ache the Father felt watching His Son suffer. Maybe my sorrow helped me touch—just barely—the sacred weight of Holy Week. My helplessness with Charis, my exhaustion, even the disciples’ sorrowful sleep...maybe it all points to something deeper: a God who understands. A Savior who bore it all.
And then, Sunday came.
Resurrection.
The promise that the story doesn’t end in darkness. That hope rises. That the tomb is empty, and the time of singing has come—even if we don’t feel it yet.
If your Holy Week felt more hard than holy, I see you. You’re not alone. But the beauty of Easter is this: even in our sorrow, resurrection breaks through. And even when winter lingers, spring is on the way.
So today, I choose hope. I choose praise. And I invite you to do the same.
He is risen! He is risen indeed.