A Personal Resurrection”

An Easter Story

Ruth stood at the grave of her friend. Eighteen years of friendship lay buried in front of her. A drunk driver broadsided her friend’s car while she was driving only three blocks from home. The details were explained to Ruth, but her mind just couldn’t grasp the words that lay suspended above her head. Numb. Slowly she felt her feet slip into the loose dirt. Longing to be buried alongside her friend rather than staying here where life had ceased. Still…never wanting to rise again.

For several months Ruth grieved her friend. Daily, across from the grave, she sat on a donated bench which was inscribed with the words,

“Faith, the substance of things hoped for; the evidence of things not seen.” Puzzling words that made no sense to her.

As it happened, one day a blue butterfly landed on the space next to her. Its wings fully stretched slowly opening and closing. At first, Ruth welcomed the company. Her mind then moved past to the image of her friend. The butterfly seemed prepared to fly away, but Ruth stopped abruptly in her grief. She had hoped the butterfly would stay so she could maybe somehow convey it a message. Such silly thinking she mused. Yet, instead of leaving, the butterfly flew around her to her other side, settled, and then rested on the bench. Ruth held her breath. Once again, the butterfly stretched its wings, “How I wish I could hear your thinking,” said Ruth. “How I wish I too could fly away from here.” The butterfly flew to face her and stared at her eye level and then started to leave. “Wait,” Ruth called out. “Could you take a message to God for me? Do you fly high enough to see Him?” The butterfly seemed to circle around her before it left. So, Ruth called out,

“Could you tell God He left me without my friend.”

The next day, no butterfly came, but a large white lab walked up and stopped in front of her smiling with a broad grin and a blue butterfly charm hanging from its collar. Ruth couldn’t help but extend her hand to touch his short-haired, amazingly soft, consoling fur. “Did the blue butterfly send you?” Ruth asked with a small laugh while petting the dog. Moving closer, the lab sat on his hind legs in front of her. He lowered his chin and placed it full strength on her knee and then pressed the entire weight of his body against her leg. His dark eyes caught hers. Deep pools of understanding peered back at Ruth with what seemed like springs of water bursting forth. Compassion spilling over into her very being. And words formed in her mind. “You are in need of grace because when you are at your weakest; God’s favor is strong.” The dog’s frame rested against her leg, and she felt the nearness of his strength supporting her with his sturdy muscles. For a few minutes, Ruth’s entire being was saturated with the over-whelming fullness of the love of God. The dog then stood up as if to leave as a woman approached.

“Hello, I see you found my dog,” said the woman. Ruth looked up and surprised herself by lightly patting the bench inviting the woman to sit down. The woman smiled. My friend donated this bench, so she comes here often to rest. To think. To remember that we don’t see all that God is doing, but that doesn’t mean He is idle. She wants to remember that it takes faith to touch the reality of the things we hope for, and then to view the evidence of what can’t be seen. The work of God is only visible with eyes of faith and…”

“I wait here daily for my friend, too; but she is not coming …ever again.”

“I am so sorry. Would you like me to leave you alone?

“No. “I just wish I could see what God is doing.” Ruth pauses shaking her head. “Why He took my friend,” then turning to Hannah, “yet petting your dog seems to have had a strange, powerful effect.”

“Yes, that is often said.” Extending her arm to touch the bench near Ruth’s hand, “I’m curious, how would knowing why this happened help you?” Stunned, Ruth remained silent by her question. “Would it not be better to ask how to gain the ability to go forward from here’?” Ruth looked directly at the woman and noticed she wore a silver necklace with a blue butterfly charm attached; and, most peculiar, her skin seems to glow.

“Who are you?” asked Ruth puzzled by the coincidence. “Is the blue butterfly for whom you wait?”

“Yes, her title is Beauty, the blue butterfly of Truth. And the white lab is Snow Bear, a hound of heaven sniffing out those in need of empowering grace. They told me about your need of a friend. I am Hannah, and I bring you hope and a message from Beauty.”

Ruth was overwhelmed by all she heard, but she nodded and continued to listen to Hannah.

“This is Easter week, the Christian celebration of the death and resurrection of their Savior. As the body of Jesus lay dead in the tomb after his crucifixion for the sins of all humans, all hope seemed lost, but really a miracle was beginning to form. Invisible to the human eye but fully visible to God. For on Sunday a resurrection was to take place. The lifeless body of Jesus would be raised. No one was in the tomb to see the event so only our imaginations can illustrate what happened, but God’s Spirit empowered Him to life.

I can only imagine as He sat up on the stone slab and stretched his feet to the ground, made contact, and stood up. The first step of a resurrection.”

Standing and walking in front of Ruth, Hannah extends her hand. “Ruth, by the grace given, stand and ascend because that which you cannot see, God clearly does. For there is an unseen purpose in all of this. Let faith assist you in touching what you are hoping for and be evident in all you cannot see. Stand up and take the first step out of your pit of death and despair and ascend with newly fashioned feet because that is exactly what Jesus did on Easter morning. He stood and then ascended.”

So that morning, many birds were singing and butterflies flying and dogs howling with a song of good news that Ruth, their new friend, had chosen to step up into faith and see the grace of God, the unseen now visible. And in heaven a party is brewing because the angels are rejoicing over one lost, despairing soul that has confessed her need of God’s gift of grace over death and is directed anew.