One of our children is moving out. She’s not the first, and she’s not the last to “leave the nest.” She is leaving under the best of circumstances, so this should be a joyous occasion as a parent. It is, and yet, it isn’t.

It’s a happy milestone for my child. It’s exciting to see her happy, anxious, and looking forward to her life ahead. That’s all good. It’s like producing a play or musical production, going to rehearsals, fine tuning and perfecting the show, then being excited as the curtain goes up. It’s showtime! It’s a joy to see your child spread her wings and fly. For parents, there is also loss. It’s a little sad to see her leave and be on her own. This is a familiar parental feeling that happens throughout your child’s lifetime. In years past, I loved my child by helping, teaching and protecting. Now I love by accepting my grief and supporting her to leave.

For Christians, the parenting role brings a spiritual process, teaching us how God fathers us. The experience of our children “leaving the nest” shows us the process of separation. It reminds us that our children are not ours to own or control. They were created to be separate individuals. However, there is a subtle but significant detail. Even as parents and their children are meant to be separate individuals, total separation wasn’t originally part of the plan. Separation was meant to be within the context of communion with God. We were created to be individuals with special identities, with freedom to live and create to glorify the creator, yet fulfilled by a full relationship with God, as we existed in the garden.

We were meant to be both in communion with God and to have a separate identity from God. This all changed when Adam chose to disobey and separate from God. Our relationship with God was broken, leading us to experience full separation, loss and death. We weren’t created for this. The loss of communion with God magnifies separateness, and makes it existentially terrifying and painful.

God feels pain not only when his children choose to deny him, and reject his Son and his redemption. He also feels when believers turn away from Him. My pain of separating from my child is a mirror to the feeling God experiences when I am distant from God. My parental sadness in the independence of my child can remind me of God’s grief when I separate from Him.

Parenting is a blessing. It is a paradox of joy and pain. It brings joy and celebration to the milestones of our children’s lives, yet there are frequent reminders of pain in their separateness. God redeems the pain in my child’s separateness. I know that separation from me is good for her. I can accept that sadness as it is a measure of my love for her as a father. As God loves me, I realize He feels sadness when I turn away from Him. In that moment, I share in the understanding of God’s experience. Then sadness and pain become redemptive as I am in communion with Him.

When I was a child, it was torture to endure Easter.  Sitting in church was not fun. I was bored, restless and uncomfortable sitting on a hard pew in especially uncomfortable clothes.  Memories of the day were not good, except for the candy.  I had no connection to the story of Easter or why I was receiving candy.

The measure of need to feel Christ’s love can be felt by how we feel gratitude for this day, and all days.  Is it just a holiday, a chore, a family event or can it be more than this in your inner experience?  Do you honestly, deep down, feel that Easter is the most important event in your life?

This word is not meant to admonish or nag that “you should feel this way.”  This is a signal, an inner measure of how you experience feeling God’s love for you. Some people go “through the motions” of the holiday, and although they understand it, it isn’t there for them.  If it is there, and you honestly connect emotionally, hallelujah!

If it is distant and difficult to experience awe and gratitude, with joy, rejoice in the knowledge that God wants you to feel more of His love. Continue to pray He will show you His love “abundantly.”  This prayer never goes unanswered.

But don’t be surprised. It may not come easy. It may come through a trial, like an illness, or it can happen through a loving relationship.  You may go through a tragic loss with extreme grief.  You might experience a painful illness with slow relief from harsh symptoms.  To grasp and feel God’s love is worth life’s trials.  This is the transformation that happens to those who have walked through Job’s experience.  At the end of his devastation, including extreme losses, illness and sufferings, he found a higher level of awareness of God.  This is the testimony of those who have gone through cancer, or depression, or loss, and say they feel closer to God and wouldn’t change how anything happened.  It is an amazing thing to hear and bear witness to.

It is important that Good Friday is before the the Resurrection.  We are privileged to emotionally participate in His suffering on the cross.  The experience is the extreme physical and emotional suffering, loss and surrender of the sacrificial, perfect and blameless lamb of God.  He was a “perfect,” sinless victim, not passive in pain and not defeated as He actively chose, to be obedient to God and suffer torturous pain, humiliation and death, to be victorious for all for us.  It is our choice to surrender ourselves, in response to Christ in faith, to feel some of His pain, even pain that we don’t deserve.  Because of His pain and suffering, we have redemption, and share in the glory with Him, all those who love Him.

Happy Easter