This morning, I rise up from my bed, trying to seperate the things I learned in my dreams from reality.

Rising next is my phone screen. Within the Happy Easter posts are adds that I try to separate inside my psyche. Next to rise is my questioning. Wondering if I am enough or if indeed my daily “yes” to Christ is enough. I try to separate truth and insecurity.

My fork rises at the breakfast table. I wrestle with the need to photograph the serenity with family or to simply be.

The remote rises this year to tune into church with my friends that aren’t around me. I separate the urge to distract myself or sit back and the desire to truly praise and engage.

My heart sinks in humility as the elements of communion rise to my mouth. I separate the feelings of unworthiness from the truth that in Him, I am fully known and fully loved.

He has risen. And I have not purely separated out everything that’s truth and fantasy, but this one truth I know is that He has risen indeed.

Emotions rise within as I contemplate how his sacrifice unites what sin tried to eternally separate.

And when the son of man was raised up on that cross, and every joint was separated, Jesus’ love had not.

He raised his voice to the Father a few times that Good Friday before his soul would separate from his broken body, But when he rose again, he would speak again. In speculation, some doubted. Separately, the 500 plus people who had seen him surely could not.

And I rise in resolve that my belief in him is not simply because of a story or a tradition, but because, in the words of Job, “I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you;”

He is risen and with this I know; that the separation I feel is only in my own self condemnation. I come humbly now in simple adoration, remembering that the whole reason he came was so we could be with him. He wants me and he wants you; fully one with him.

And so, I rise.