Turtle and the Egg

 "Don't be so focused on getting out of difficult circumstances that you don't get anything out of them."

On the same day we found the bird's nest, this turtle showed up in our yard.

It's like the wild kingdom around here between the possums, the birds, the deer and the turtles.

Peanut is my intense animal lover and she couldn't have been more excited.

Peanut and I watched the turtle. We aren't sure where he came from but we first spotted him on our driveway. He made it across and into the yard and then he lingered there. Maundy Thursday.

Good Friday and the Silent Saturday, the turtle moved but not much and not far.

The bird laid one egg Friday and one egg Saturday.

Easter Sunday the bird laid her third egg, and the turtle died.

If you spend Lent praying to God to understand the chaos, you just might end up with life and death in your yard on Easter Sunday.

I spent Lent having trouble finding my footing.

Reading about justice and mercy.

Praying about my home, my community, my world.

We celebrated the new egg in the nest.

We said a final goodbye to the turtle and buried him.

I think if we lean in to our life, we will find there aren't many coicidences.

I clearly got the message.

There will always be grief, sadness, struggle.

There will always be joy, happiness, celebrations.

They co-exist every single day.

Life is not one OR the other.

Life is one WITH the other.

A full life is full of both grief and joy.

Mama Warriors, Easter is always this beautiful story to me of how there is no joy without grief.

There is no Resurrection without the cross.

There is no joy without the tomb.

But we tend to hunt for the eggs, sing the hymns loudly and then by Monday we've forgotten about the co-existence of the turtle and the eggs.

Let's be people who carry both Good Friday and Easter Sunday with us all year long.

We have to be people who can mourn the turtle AND celebrate the egg.

Let's be people who recognize the grief AND the joy.