My friend Melody pointed out this morning on Facebook that this week marks both the anniversary of the Boston Marathon bombing, and Holy Week…in other words, it’s time to revert to waterproof mascara.

I’m having a hard time wrapping my brain around these big things right now. I’m caught up in little things – joy over how THIS DOG has finally figured out how to walk on a leash; frustration about the squirrel that ate through four inches of wood in one night to have her squirrel-ettes in our soffit; questions of whether installation of a ceiling fan in our tiny bedroom might reduce the need for an air conditioner this summer.

Such minutia. I mean, who cares about dogs and squirrels and sleeping temperature in a week where we commemorate the brutal murder of innocent people?

I guess I do. I want to be better than this – to be deeper, maybe. To cry some more. But I doubt that will happen this year, because I don’t have it in me. I think I need more distance from the raw, brutal loss to be able (or even willing) to mourn. It won’t always be like this. But this year, it is. I will cook (bake?) my first ham for Easter dinner on Sunday, and welcome our family around our table. But we won’t be holding a service for Good Friday. Maybe next year, but not now.

I was all set to feel horrible about this. Until I re-read this chapter from Nichole Nordeman’s book, Love Story, posted on her new blog. I grabbed my copy of her book and skipped to page 192, and let it remind me that the point of THE story is life, not death.

It’s a dog that was thrown from a van and abandoned in Tennessee, who now walks proudly through her Boston suburb like she was born here.  It’s God restoring me to a home where I get to figure out how to be hospitable to people I love, and less welcoming to pregnant rodents.  And it’s the anticipation of summer warmth after a long, cold winter that felt like it might never end.

This week, I’m focusing on the rest of the story: how after he was murdered, Jesus rose from the dead, and then told us that somehow, through him, that same thing is possible for us.