It is Finished

©iStockphoto.com/Richard Goerg

It’s late on Good Friday and I’ve been trying to write this post all day, thinking on Christ’s death and sacrifice.  Someone said at the beginning of this Holy Week that not only are we celebrating Christ’s death but also our death made possible by his.  We all as Christians have experienced the death of our old selves.  The old has gone and the new has come. 

I suppose I’ve always celebrated that each Easter but this Easter is different.  Ever since writing my book Entangled and sharing the story of my emotional affair, I have had such wonderful peace and closure on that part of my life.  One aspect that I finally truly understand is death to self.  While my old self was gone when I accepted Christ, I feel like there was an old self of sorts that was slain when I gave up a relationship that I did not want to give up.  I say that without shame and only truth now.  But it was hard.  It took many tears and many slayings of my desires to get out of that.  But then on top of the giving up, there was the public writing about it in Entangled, one of the most nerve-wracking things I’ve ever done. Many ask me if I’m glad I wrote that book and I say with every ounce of me it’s one of the best things I ever did.  In a way, it was the final spear into the side of that time.  I finally could say, “It is finished” and truly live in the resurrection he gave me.

But the key for me has been the very public nature of it.  Christ’s death and resurrection were both very public.  And for a purpose.  He needed everyone to finally know that he was the son of God. And I think that’s exactly why he has us share our own deaths and resurrections.  People need to know he’s still the son of God.  His story was not the end of it. His life still lives on through us, resurrecting those that are dead.

How thankful I am for the new life he breathed into my life and marriage, all made possible by his sacrifice.  What a Good Friday, indeed.