Lent for Extroverts 39: Between a Friday and a Sunday

In the year 2000 Good Friday fell on 21st April. I know that because I had a baby that day. I was booked in to be induced at 37 weeks because I had suffered a still birth the year before, and pregnancy had become a very stressful condition that I wanted to bring to completion as soon as possible. But when we arrived early at the hospital it was pandemonium on the maternity ward and they told us to come back at tea time. 

A Good Friday service was taking place in our church, in fact in the Church Centre, as the church building was being re-ordered, so after wandering the town for a while we took our plastic seats at the back just in time for the worship to begin. It was Holy Communion. I can safely say it's the only church service I've ever sat through during which I entered into the early stages of labour.

By evening we were back in hospital and the atmosphere was calmer. No induction was needed after all; delivery was natural, the body doing its own work. The long awaited baby came whilst the final of Robot Wars raged in the TV room down the corridor. After the major effort of being born, our little boy slept peacefully in the cradle of the quiet evening with no fuss at all whilst everyone around him went mad with relief and jubilation. We went home the next day. The very first morning he awoke in his new home was Easter (resurrection) morning.

It's quite a thing to undergo a crucifixion and a resurrection in childbirth. It had also been a Friday when we found out our other little son was going to be stillborn. He was delivered early on a Sunday morning. The vicar came to bless him before going back to our church to lead the morning service. It was still resurrection morning - every Sunday is - but sometimes, often, resurrection is delayed. Between a Friday and a Sunday a lot can happen. Or nothing happens. 

It's quiet in the garden of the tomb, apart from the weeping, which has just begun.