By Carolina Fernandez

Just when we thought spring had finally arrived, we got blasted with snow flurries and wretched weather all day Saturday. Rain mixed with snow and sleet…and spring spirits dashed right along with hopes of getting anything done outside in the garden…or of simply catching a whiff of fresh spring air. Because my calendar tells me that spring has officially arrived—we’re ten days into it for crying out loud and chocolate bunnies, eggs and marshmallow chicks line rack upon rack of grocery store shelves after all—yet my eyes tell me that winter is indeed, still in our midst—we cannot leave our homes without bulky overcoats and sweaters—I’m caught between the desire for celebrating spring’s freshness and vitality with the inescapable resignation that winter, at least up here in New England, is still here.

Such is Holy Week. We want so badly to celebrate the Resurrection at Easter, but we feel overcome with the passion and trial of the days leading from Palm Sunday through Good Friday. This season signals—around the world—time for reflection. During Holy Week, we move—day by day—from sadness to enthusiasm. From the valley of darkness to the tunnel of light.  And that entails conflict.

Many of us feel conflicted these days. Overall, general “conflictedness.” The war in Iraq might be bogging us down in one way or another; college acceptance and rejection letters might be cause for overall malaise or even panic; and figuring out the calendar for summer activities for your kids in light of your own schedule might be more than you can emotionally handle.

I’ve been unusually conflicted lately. I’ll most likely be re-entering the official workforce in the next few weeks or months, and I’ve been interviewing, taking tests and talking with lots of different folks from varied areas of the work-world in an effort to nail down what I should be doing with myself, professionally, for the next oh, twenty years or so. A huge decision. We’re trying to figure out how to transition from having a mom in the home to having one gone during the day; how to shuffle kids to various activities without a mom-chauffeur yet with a new teen driver on our roster; and yet how to deal with the financial reality of multiple college tuition bills for most of the foreseeable future which, in and of itself is enough to cause discomfort. Perhaps my family just has too many balls in the air. Too many unanswered questions. Too many variables in the equation.

Yet as I look around, I see so many others facing conflict and discomfort. I cannot go one week without receiving an email or a phone call from a reader whose family member is struggling with one problem or another. Financial problems, health concerns, relationship issues. Most of us hate being uncomfortable. We hate conflict. Hate uncertainty. Hate dealing with the struggle in order to celebrate the victory. And yet that’s the real lesson of Holy Week.

However tempting it is to focus your thoughts and energies this week on the celebration of Easter—on resurrection and renewal—I hope that you allow yourself some quiet time to sort out the conflicts and discomforts of Maundy Thursday and of Good Friday. To focus on the sacrifice. For as you grow more fully aware of the sacrifice that Christ made on your behalf, you will gain immeasurable joy at the power of the Resurrection.

And if you are of another faith, please be sensitive to the fact that this week brings with it introspection for millions of people around the world. Passover will be celebrated by Jews and they will have rituals and holy remembrances, too.

So as tempting as it is when you’re in discomfort, confused…or just in a funk…to focus on spring’s lightheartedness and brightness, on chicks and on chocolate, remember that for a few days anyway, it’s not about that. It’s not about the bunnies. Even though, I admit, they’re taking up inordinate amounts of windowsill and tabletop real estate in my own home these days, and as much as they emotionally lift me out of the doldrums of winter, out of my own confusion and state of disequilibrium and into the sublime celebration of spring, they have little to do with the days ahead of us this week.

Go ahead and splurge on chocolate and on baskets. On flowers for your home or in a new outfit or on travel. This is a time for celebration, to be sure, come Easter Day. But allow yourself in the next few days, to internalize the conflict of Holy Week. It is one time of year when your internal struggle should be palpable. For we cannot get to Easter, to victory, without coming to grips with the sacrifice of Good Friday. Throughout life, we cannot get to true celebration without coming to grips with life’s struggle.

Carolina Fernandez earned an M.B.A. and worked at IBM and as a stockbroker at Merrill Lynch before coming home to work as a wife and mother of four. She totally re-invented herself along the way. Strong convictions were born about the role of the arts in child development; ten years of homeschooling and raising four kids provide fertile soil for devising creative parenting strategies. These are played out in ROCKET MOM! 7 Strategies To Blast You Into Brilliance. It is widely available online, in bookstores or through 888-476-2493. She writes extensively for a variety of parenting resources and teaches other moms via seminars, workshops, keynotes and monthly meetings of the ROCKET MOM SOCIETY, a sisterhood group she launched to “encourage, equip and empower moms for excellence.”

Please visit http://www.rocketmom.com

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Miss Domestic on February 23rd, 2007 | File Under Easter | -