READ: ISAIAH 53:1-5; 2 CORINTHIANS 4:8-18; 1 PETER 5:6-11

The pastor spoke through the laptop sitting on a TV tray in my living room. It wasn’t the typical way I spent Easter Sunday. I took a few steps and opened the blinds, mimicking how the shades opened during service at my home church. My mom laughed, and I returned to the couch to listen to the Easter message.

Several days earlier, I had an ovarian cyst the size of a grapefruit removed from my abdomen. The sixty days before the surgery had been filled with confusion, anguish, and debilitating pain. Unsure of the root cause at first, I spent weeks scheduling tests with doctors until the cyst was finally found.

Even after the doctors found the cyst, I had to wait another month for the surgery. That month was one of the hardest months of my life. Chronic pain and fatigue, while trying to teach a class full of rambunctious first graders, made me question why God was allowing this in my life.

Those sixty days were hard, but through them, I came to feel closer to God. The nights when I had pain so severe I thought it might burst through my body, I called out to God, and He sustained me. When I wasn’t sure how I would endure, I clung to His promises, and He came through. That Easter was different than any other Easter, but it was also the rawest example of the Easter message in my life. My body had felt dead, consumed in pain and anguish, but through the hands of skilled doctors, God had raised my body back to life.

Later that day, my mom drove us to a nearby restaurant. It was a huge accomplishment to get dressed, climb into a car, and sit in a booth. My broken body was being restored. Easter pie never tasted so sweet. • Jenna Brooke Carlson

• On Easter Sunday, we celebrate that Jesus rose from the dead! Through His death and resurrection, He made the way for us to be restored to relationship with God—and for all of creation to be made new one day when Jesus returns. As we wait for this glorious day, we have the incredible blessings of Jesus’s presence with us every moment, and the many ways He shows us His care and healing. Yet we also long for renewal that isn’t here yet. Can you think of a time you felt broken? Were there any ways you noticed God caring for you?

• Where are you still waiting for God’s renewal? Consider taking a moment to talk to Him about this.

But those who die in the Lord will live; their bodies will rise again! Those who sleep in the earth will rise up and sing for joy! For your life-giving light will fall like dew on your people in the place of the dead! Isaiah 26:19 (NLT)