resurrection and Resurrection.
When I was in fourth grade, my family was homeless.
In 1994, a 6.7 magnitude earthquake with an epicenter in Reseda slammed Southern California. At the time, we were living in a pretty luxurious house in the hills of Simi Valley, and when the quake struck, I vaguely remember being wrapped in a blanket while my parents barreled down the stairs with my brother and I in tow and the four of us huddled on the chaise in the living room, praying that the room wouldn’t collapse in on us.
(Well, my parents did. From what they tell me I was completely passed out once we reached the living room.)
And after what seemed like an eternity, the shaking stopped. And we found ourselves without a home.
For a few days afterwards, my parents set up a tent outside and we pretended we were camping in our backyard. We used the bushes in the backyard as a makeshift toilet, and played soccer around our tent with the other kids in the neighborhood to pass the time. One time a reporter from the local newspaper interviewed me, asking how it was to be living outdoors, and I’m pretty sure I mentioned playing soccer with the neighbors and using the bushes as a bathroom. I’m also pretty sure they never used my interview.
The weeks following, we slept at a friend’s house who lived down the street, whose house miraculously survived the earthquake. I borrowed one of their mattresses, but in the middle of the night I wet the bed, and being unsure of how to handle the situation, I left the mattress on the floor and nonchalantly came down to breakfast smelling of urine.
Some time later we ended up moving out to a small apartment out in Moorpark. Probably for unrelated reasons.
I look back on those days and I can hardly imagine how my parents dealt with the stress: house remodeling with repairs in the thousands, displaced from our home, moving from a four bedroom house to a two bedroom house in an apartment complex in Moorpark, all while juggling the health issues of my grandparents…
The funny thing is, I don’t remember being stressed in those times, or those times being difficult. I’m sure there were moments where I could sense the difficulty of it all. But that season of my life remains one of the most cherished of my childhood. And part of it is that when I look back on those times, life had taken on a different cadence than what I was used to. Before the earthquake, we were just so busy. But during that time, when my elementary school had our annual fundraiser, my mom would take me on walks around the apartment where our neighbors would lounge in their porches on folding chairs, lit cigarettes in hands and beers next to them, and I’d sell them overpriced peanut brittle and holiday towels from the catalog while we laughed and talked. There were kids the same age as me, literally just fifty steps from my door, who we would visit to play video games or play outside. Some of my fondest memories happened in that tiny two-bedroom apartment, where we crammed ourselves and as much as our furniture as we could into that space, watching movies on the couch we had for years that still smelled like home.
And it was in that space that my heart felt full.
The truth is, we often go through seasons where we feel utterly challenged and powerless to overcome the circumstances we find ourselves in—moments where it often feels as though eternity has entered into the frame, shrugging nonchalantly as if to say, “Here I am.”
And the same truth is, once we extract ourselves from our moments of suffering and we’ve been given the benefit of distance and healing, we look back to find that those moments were perhaps more instructive or helpful and life-giving than we thought.
When Jesus is betrayed, crucified, and dies, his disciples flee in terror.
Confused,
Terrified,
Their whole world upended.
And in the aftermath of his death, they find themselves quarantined behind locked doors, wondering if the moment will pass. And then, without warning, Jesus appears in their midst—alleviating their fears, helping them overcome their terror, settling their doubts. In that moment, Resurrection led to resurrection: dying to their anxieties, reactions, frustrations and being raised again into people of joy, love, confidence, faith. And what we see following days later are the same people who were crippled by the fear of persecution and death becoming resurrection people, preaching boldly the good news of the Kingdom of Heaven.
Someone once asked me why I believe in Jesus.
And I believe in Jesus for many reasons, but for two main ones: Resurrection, and resurrection.
Resurrection because Jesus came back from the dead. And resurrection because every day, his Resurrection invites us into a new Story: one where pain and fear does not define us, where our hardships and stories can be reshaped through the eyes of God, where the steady hand of the Spirit promises that nothing in our life is wasted—not even the pain—if we’re willing to commit all that we’ve been given to Jesus.
Yes, one day we will experience bodily Resurrection—but in the meantime, Jesus invites us into resurrection, the everyday kind, the kind where you feel like that eternal frustration you were just gritting your teeth through has finally passed and you’ve begun entering into a new day.
The kind of resurrection where fear and dread give way to hope and love.
The kind of resurrection where you wake up in anticipation of possibilities, not drowning in sorrow.
The kind of resurrection where you’re able to look back to where you were, as hard as it was earlier in your story, and you’re able to say: “My heart feels full.”