Even before my niece Merilee sent out her email two days ago, my mind was already on the song she posted. I think “Symphony of Pain” is my favorite song she has written. I was privileged to hear it before its release. I was in California when she and Bobby Pickett (our technician) played it for me. I counted it an honor to see the director notes that they used. This let me see and hear what I would not be able to otherwise. (I’ve had a hearing loss since childhood, and now my middle-aged eyesight does not allow me to read small font.) Seeing the handwritten notes, let me know which sounds they were replicating in the song. I could visualize the steps Jesus took.

This Good Friday/Easter week is so different from my last twenty-three. A highlight of our year is our Wesleyan Holiness Alliance annual preachers convention. Today would have been our final day of the convention. We fill the little Bartlesville church, crowding in with testimonies, preaching, praying, crying, and shouting! It is a time to reconnect and feel the unity of the Spirit. But this year, we are not able to reconnect with anyone! For the first time since they were preemies in NICU, my twins have stayed in the same location for weeks. Across the country, there are so many people behind their walls!

So it makes sense that this theme has come to me over and over…this theme of walls. Over 2,000 years ago, there was a little band of people isolating themselves behind walls and locked doors. I think I identify with this group of disciples more than I have any other Easter season. They were scared and confused! Things had not turned out the way they thought. They had worries for the future. They were haunted by their failures and fears. Then, right in the middle of all of this, Jesus came through their walls! Walls make no difference to Him—whether this is the literal walls of isolation during this time or walls around your heart. Even if these walls are self-protection from pain. Jesus can come through these!

I really love Isaiah 59:19 “When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him.” But when I tried to study this passage, I found that this was a hard one for the translators to translate from the original Hebrew. Some have thought that it was the Spirit of God sweeping like a torrent of water. It was the Lord who was coming in like a flood—through the closed places and locked doors! I say sweep today! Bring revival! Go through locked doors! Go to isolated houses, to loved ones and friends behind closed doors…Bring a resurrection! Bring the healing only You can bring, Oh Lord! By His stripes we are healed! Good Friday!