Ready or Not: Hope and Joy in Easter Sacrifice

I became a “woman” on Easter Sunday. I was eleven—eleven and a half, if we’re being exact. I had some idea of what was coming. Two older sisters had gone before me, and I had read Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret like it was a handbook. Still, there are moments that no amount of observing or reading can prepare for you in advance. They arrive, ready or not.

Every year, my mother took her four daughters shopping before the holiday. She made it an occasion and we learned Easter was very special. My new dress hung in the closet, untouched and full of promise. Shiny shoes were lined up neatly underneath. We didn’t fully grasp why it mattered so much, but she did. She marked the day as important long before we understood what resurrection really meant.

A New “Friend“

Easter morning, 1974, I woke up thinking about candy. The chocolate bunny. The peanut butter eggs. The predictable, comforting parts of being a child on Easter morning. What I wasn’t counting on while lying in my bed that morning was the fact that my childhood would end, and a new “friend” would take its place.

My Mom rushed to explain how to use the complicated items that I now must be expected to wear. Petrified and panicked, I dressed, trying to follow directions despite two older sisters banging on the door telling me it was their turn to use the bathroom.

Nothing felt familiar anymore. Even my beautiful Easter dress didn’t feel the same once it was pulled over all the other layers. It fit tighter than it should have, but there was no space to stop and think about that. We needed to get to church.

The pretty purse I had planned to carry—chosen to match my outfit—was suddenly useless. It wouldn’t hold what I now needed it to hold. I stood there, stuck between wanting everything to look and be the same and knowing something had permanently changed.

Once at church, I proceeded down the aisle to find a seat at the front of the sanctuary in the choir loft among the women in my family. The minister spoke about the blood of Jesus Christ—about sacrifice, about what was given up so that something greater could be made possible.

With Age Comes Wisdom

Now, years later, I can see more clearly what I couldn’t then. The change I experienced didn’t take something from me, it offered me a chance to give life, to “…be fruitful and increase in number…” (Genesis 1:28 NIV), a blessing from our heavenly Father that would later require much sacrifice and selflessness.

My church family was a gift to me that day, and the days and years that came afterward. I learned from women who showed up. Women who served. Women who kept going, who sang, who made space for others, often foregoing their own needs and discomforts. Over time, and because of His great mercy, I grew to live life in a way that makes room for the next generation to learn as I once did.

Easter still holds so much gratitude for me—the truth of sacrifice, the reality of Jesus’s resurrected life, and the reminder that transformation is rarely comfortable, but opens pathways for hope and joy when we choose to follow and obey God’s Word.

This Easter, I pray you choose to receive the fullness of the Savior’s sacrifice, and joy of His resurrection. Because ready or not, He has come.

Your friend,

Jennifer