An Impostor (Day 94)

I always feel like a bit of an impostor when it comes to writing about my faith. During the writing of every post so far that has mentioned anything about church or Jesus or God, I get this clenching feeling in the stomach and think, "Should I really be writing this?"

When it comes to writing about Easter, I feel like the biggest impostor of all. 

Easter is a tricky, miraculous, absolutely mad story of a dead man who lives again. It lacks the ease of Christmas--when we simply celebrate a birthday. It lacks the drama of Palm Sunday and Holy Week--the parade, the betrayal and the death. Easter is filled with absolute madness--an empty tomb with a couple angels, a dead man walking and talking and showing himself to his friends. 

It is absolutely crazy. 

And I believe every word of it.  

If you asked me why, that nagging impostor syndrome would pop up, because it's impossible to explain faith completely. To explain my firm, pure belief in the miracle of resurrection requires ditching everything we know to be true in this world--the absoluteness of birth and death and the life lived in-between. It's hard for me to tell you exactly why I believe--beyond saying something trite, like "It's in the Bible" and how I believe--beyond saying that I try my best to be a good person. 

But, I am going to be brave and put my impostor syndrome aside. Here it goes:

I think this world is totally fallen and I believe the fall happened when Eve and Adam took those bites of the apple. I believe that sharing in the knowledge of God makes us forget who we were before we were here and where we will go afterwards. The knowledge of how everything works and the endless drive to find out even more about how everything works, distracts us from the Holy, thin places that exist everywhere. We are forgetful, we are distracted and we are very much people who deeply fear being the impostor. 

So, when I put my knowledge aside--knowledge like when the heart stops the body dies and instead try my best to focus on my belief--I can easily feel the faith and the glory of the resurrection. I cannot often do this in my normal life--I've never figured out how to feel the Holy Spirit on a random Tuesday when I am on a conference call and thinking about what I want to have for lunch. 

But, I have felt the presence of something not human and not scary and beautiful and peaceful and more real like the nose on my face. It's happened a few times--but once, when I think I may have been at my absolute lowest and praying, praying, praying for a miracle for my brother, I heard someone else's prayers in my ears. I won't ever forget the moment--and their prayer became my own and my brother's body died; but another sister, somewhere else, a woman I'll never know, she got her miracle. 

There are still moments when I feel broken over my brother--more moments than I share--when I pray for peace and that peace comes from feeling that I am never alone in my prayers. We are one body in Christ, always. We may pray for different things; but in our prayers for God's intervention in our world, we are truly all praying for the same thing. 

And that my friends, is the power of the resurrection. Christ's resurrection, led to His accession to heaven and the coming of the Holy Spirit here. It is that Holy Spirit that whispers in our ears, connects us in prayer and clears our minds when the knowledge gets in the way. It is the Holy Spirit that reminds us that so many thought Christ was an impostor, too. But that knowledge did not ever stop Him or God from loving us and saving us. 

So this Easter, friends, we are reminded of a mad, mad story of the resurrection of a very dead man, who became the Savior that granted us eternal life--not here--but elsewhere. We are reminded that in every prayer there is the Spirit working through us and within us. We are reminded that while we can know everything, we can't remember everything. We are reminded that is okay that we forgot; because the Spirit is always available to remind us. 

And if we fail to hear the Spirit, we can always check the calendar for Easter, a day when we can reset our impostor thoughts and refocus on the knowledge that we loved and we are never impostors in God's eyes.