Minutes pass, and hours; the pendulum sways them all away. We pass into the new day together.

Until a small voice cries; grows insistent. It rouses me from the silence of myself. I am no longer alone. And I remember now: I never was.

For a moment, the pendulum stops swinging. Gives me a chance to weigh which deadline cries the louder, then presses on.

I stand, decision made, and push the door wide open. Tiny eyes seek; little fingers point. Tears make it clear.

He is lost. Dark is for rest, but tonight he can’t find it alone. Mother sets it right, picks him up, holds him close.

And the deadline presses hard, hard against arms and heart. Flood the words, flood the thoughts, from the inside to the out. He finds a cradle in my arms, and in the cradle he finds what he was looking for.

Minutes pass; I ask for hours. The pendulum sways them all away.

We pass into the new day together.

Deadline met.

She cried for Jesus.

Because He died.

She cried like it happened that minute; and for her, it did. Until then, the reality remained in her ears only—truths she’d been told that had no real home. But while we flipped through the picture Bible, they moved to her mind, and finally found her heart.

With no concern for clocks or calendars, it happened that very moment—the one in which she realized it. Her face turned red, her eyes welled up. And the floor absorbed the shock of it all.

He died! He died!

I chuckled; how sweet. I laughed; how silly. Then it hurt.

That’s right, he did.

He had to, we tried. No use. So we quick hurried to the tomb. And she stopped crying when we got there.

As Mary might’ve looked, or Peter, so did she: wide-eyed, red-faced, wet-cheeked. But quiet and still and listening very carefully.

The tomb is empty; the linen is formless; the angels are questioning, why do you search?

He is alive! 

There He is on the road to Emmaus. There He is in their midst. There He is by the water with Peter; look He’s eating breakfast. And there He is ascending.

Now all is well. The tears are wiped away with her little palms. Now they can be dried. All is well and good and right, now.

May the truth always fall so fresh. May it quicken the tears, and be quicker to dry them.