This Night Is Different From All Other Nights: For I know my redeemer lives.... A pause in all the reflection to celebrate life

There are many places I feel called to journey into and share from the albums of my life.  There are intimate moments of sorrow, hunger, pain, death, overcoming and triumph and joy that are floating through my being and being played forth upon my heart to come and flow up and out and over.

But today ... as we head to Easter, as Passover begins, my Jewish past and my life as a Christian swirl together as those old fashion paint wheels that once existed in town festivals and county fairs.  

I was the youngest.  I asked the four questions of the Passover feast.  Again a Google search led me to the website that held within it the promises of my name.

http://walkingthepassage.blogspot.com/2013/03/things-i-have-run-from-and-why-i-am.html

  This time it was to visit the four questions and their answers.  Again I would find more hope and healing both for now and from the past.  A remembrance of slavery, slavery to fear, to condemnation, to hopelessness, to despair...  a movement towards freedom, towards liberty, to celebration.

So the four questions:

          1. On all nights we need not dip even once, and on this night we dip twice!

2. On all nights we eat leavened bread or matzah, and on this night, only matzah!

3. On all nights we eat various vegetables, and on this night, bitter herbs!

4. On all nights we eat sitting upright or reclining, and on this night we all recline!

The answers are found in this article:  http://www.chabad.org/holidays/passover/pesach_cdo/aid/511100/jewish/Answers-to-the-4-Questions.htm

The remembrance of slavery.. the luxury, privilege and gift  of freedom!


I loved this quote for where I wanted to go with this blog:  "The Seder plate is often thought to be the centerpiece of the Passover Eve celebration.

Correction: The children are.

The name of the feast's script, the Haggadah, which means "to tell" or instruct the children, makes its purpose clear. The Seder is more a forum for education than it is a festival of commemoration.

On this night the main characters are curious children with questions, not sagacious men with answers. The Four Sons are the feature story, not our Fore Fathers."

http://www.chabad.org/holidays/passover/pesach_cdo/aid/1168490/jewish/A-Night-of-Questions.htm

As a child who was terrorized by fearful things asking questions was not on the top of my list of things to do.  I wanted to post pictures of my children in this post... That is how it started.  I wasn't sure where I was going, I can't even say I "felt" "led."  I can't even say it was whispers.  My fingers touched keys and searched for answers and again I would stumble upon words that riveted my soul.

I wanted to feature how I see the Lord's redemption in the faces and lives of my children.  I wanted to pass hope forward that in one generation the Lord brings forth transformation and alters the course of a blood line.  I didn't know to tie it to Passover, until I kept hearing and seeing and remembering "The Four Questions."

I was enslaved to fear but in one generation my children know hope.  I knew the bitterness of pain and abuse and my children know the freedom of discovery.  

I know my  redeemer lives. I see it in their smiles.  I see it in their accomplishments.  I hear it as they speak.  I hear it in their laughter.  Every day before me I see redemption, I see freedom... I see life... I beckon you forward.  I beckon you to step into hope.  Leave the shackles behind.  This night is different from all other nights.  Passover into new life. Leave slavery behind. Know freedom.  Freedom from fear.. freedom from loss.. freedom from pain... freedom from agony.. freedom from all that would bind you... you are a slave no longer.... You a child of freedom!  Breathe!!!