Revival of the Unfittest

Easter Sunday I didn't want to get out of bed. I could blame it on the rough camping trip Andrew and I just took with our son Cade. It was his first time camping and it rained. And he was bored. And he played a game he made up in the tent while Andrew and I cooked supper stressfully beneath a tarp to the backdrop of thunder and lightening. Cade's game busted the window in our tent. We didn't realize we didn't teach him tent etiquette.

I'd be lying if I said that was the only reason I didn't want to get out of bed Sunday morning. These days, church doesn't come easy. In my 33 years on this earth, I've never felt so spiritually slumpish. Church is a tough subject these days. Andrew and I recently left the evangelical church we had attended prior to our move to Mexico. In total, we'd been a part of that church eight years. But it had become clear certain theologies were drastically different than ours, and after a discussion with the pastor, we knew it was time to leave.

So on resurrection Sunday, I lay in bed, wishing I didn't have to rise. My mind doesn't ever stop thinking about our church issues, and how we know others are having them too; but talking about church issues seems taboo and sinful, scary and gossipy. I scanned Twitter for reminders from the great cloud of witnesses there that Easter is good, my feelings wouldn't last, and Resurrection Sunday was a day worth rising for. In the midst of my searching, a muse, maybe divinely inspired, sent me the thought "Easter is revival of the unfittest," and with that I smiled and rising suddenly became easier.

On a day when it seems to matter if you have a new dress, if your children look put together, and family pictures are a must, it's easy to forget that Christ's resurrection is for the well-dressed and the the not-so-fashionable. On a morning when my self worth is low and I wonder how many cultural sins I'll be enacting by wearing a black dress to church on Easter because nothing else fits my larger-than-ever body right now, I needed to remember that Christ came not for the fittest, but for the cultural misfit, the physically unfit, the anti-social hermit.

On days when our bodies, souls, and spirits reluctantly say yes to being alive, we have no other option than to lean on Life itself. It seems like it's just one foot in front of the other, but I think it's actually God's strength whispering to our souls, encouraging us to move forward, and reminding us--especially when we don't deserve it--just how beautiful his gospel is.

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