It’s Easter. We open our social media and up pop cute, springy family photos with everyone smiling. “Happy Easter! Hope you have a lovely celebration with family and friends!” We see it online, we notice happy people at church, or at egg hunts, and we cringe. 

Maybe it’s all we can do to get out of bed and get our kids into something presentable for church services. Maybe we’ve been fighting with our spouse for weeks about where we’ll be eating lunch. Maybe it’s just been a hard season and we just can’t find the celebration spark. Maybe we’re lonely.

Four years ago, I’d just left the hospital before Easter weekend. My husband, associate pastor at our church, was exhausted from working Sunday morning and wanted to stay home. But that year I felt especially homesick and begged to go to a friend’s house for lunch. We went. I remember nothing from it except taking the photo afterward and the extreme exhaustion we all felt on the drive home. Later that afternoon I managed to get outside and take my baby girl’s 11-month photos in the yard. She was all cute and smiley. Those photos might have spelled “perfect” to Facebook, but when I look at them I remember sadness and weariness and am so grateful that year is over. 

As a family in church ministry, most of our holidays include more work than fun. Add to that my husband’s indifference to family traditions and my passion for meaningful celebrations and the fact that we live hours away from both families. In a flash you can capture a smile and fresh outfits (if you’re lucky and snap photos before the kids get covered in chocolate and grass stains). 

But a flash is only one moment of real life. And all moments, hard, easy, happy and difficult, build a life. 

These verses from Ecclesiastes 3 are some of my favorites in the Bible: 

I have seen the burden God has placed on us all. Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end. So I concluded there is nothing better than to be happy and enjoy ourselves as long as we can. And people should eat and drink and enjoy the fruits of their labor, for these are gifts from God.

We can’t see everything that goes on in God’s work. We can’t see the scope of our whole lives. We can’t see everyone else’s. So when we watch the highlight reel of people’s lives on social media, or in public somewhere, we can either let it discourage us, or choose to believe the truth. We’re all carrying a burden, yet we all have happy moments. And even the burdens become beautiful in God’s hands. 

I’m on my own journey. You are on yours. Mine is not perfect. Neither is yours. 

Embrace the fact that my life is hard, too. Be glad with me that I got a happy photo of my kids…and remember that I probably yelled at them for eating too much chocolate 20 minutes later. See my smiling family photo and be grateful with me even if you are alone this holiday…and remember that we probably argued on the way to church. 

Feel your frustrations in the holiday imperfections. Sit in the discomfort. Cry if you need to. Then eat and drink and enjoy what you can as a gift from God. There is beauty there even when it’s hard to find. 

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