She's Alive Again!
Part 4 of 4 - The Resurrection Power Series: Your New Season
As I began writing this article, I can still see the Italian stained glass windows, representing the 14 Stations of The Cross, which depicted Jesus on the day of his crucifixion (His suffering and death).
I was a little girl sitting with my grandfather (who was an Episcopal priest), as visitors at an Episcopal Cathedral. My legs dangling off the pew, watching the colors pour through the glass from the sun, like God was painting the walls just for me. And then the hymn started. “Onward, Christian Soldiers.” The organ swelled. The congregation rose. And something in that moment marked me in a way I wouldn’t understand for decades.
“Onward, Christian soldiers, marching as to war, with the cross of Jesus going on before.” -Sabine Baring-Gould, 1865.
I didn’t know what the cross truly meant yet. I just knew it mattered. I could feel it in the music, in the stained glass, in the way my grandfather stood next to me singing in that Cathedral, like he was singing directly to God, in his rich baritone voice. Something about Good Friday got into my bones before I had words for it.
It wasn’t until decades later, in my early 30’s, that I accepted Christ as my Lord and Savior in 1994. And that’s when what I had felt as a child became what I knew as a woman. Good Friday wasn’t just a story. It was the story. The one that changed everything.
And it’s the story that’s about to change everything for you too.
***
When the Greatest Gift You Ever Received Wasn’t Under a Tree
We celebrate Christmas, and there’s beauty in that. The manger. The star. The baby who came to save the world. People exchange gifts, and it’s a wonderful thing.
But Good Friday? That’s where the greatest gift was given. Not wrapped in paper. Wrapped in thorns. Not placed under a tree. Placed on one.
God gave us the gift of His Son. Jesus gave us the gift of His life. He took every sin, every shame, every broken thing we’ve ever carried and bore the weight of it on that cross. Not because we earned it. Not because we deserved it. Because He loved us that much.
And here is the part that still makes me catch my breath: He didn’t stay on the cross. He didn’t stay in the tomb. On the third day, He rose again. Death didn’t get the last word. It never does. Not with our God.
That’s Easter. Not bunnies and brunch. Easter is the moment God looked at death, defeat, and every sealed tomb in human history and said: “Not the last word. Not on My watch.”
And He’s saying it over your life too.
***
The Morning Everything Changed
Two thousand years ago, Mary Magdalene and Mary, the mother of James, walked to a tomb at dawn. They weren’t expecting a miracle. They were expecting a body. They came with spices and grief and the heavy, hollow ache of watching someone they loved die.
But when they arrived, the stone was rolled away. The tomb was empty. And an angel asked them the most radical question in human history:
“Why do you look for the living among the dead?”
Read that again. Let it land.
Those women went looking for death and found life instead. They went expecting an ending and walked into a beginning. Everything they thought was over was actually just starting.
I’ve been those women. Maybe you have too. Walking toward something you were certain was finished, only to find that God had been working in the silence the whole time.
***
What “Newness of Life” Actually Means
In Romans 6:4 (NIV), Paul writes something that has become the heartbeat of this entire series:
“We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.”
A new life. Not a perfect life. Not a painless life. A new one.
The Greek word for “new” here is kainos. It doesn’t mean brand new, as in ‘never existed before.’ It means renewed. Made fresh. Given new quality and character. It’s the same word used in 2 Corinthians 5:17 (NIV):
“If anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old is gone, the new is here!.”
That means you’re not starting from scratch. You’re starting from everything you’ve survived. Every valley, every tear, every night you thought you wouldn’t make it. God isn’t erasing your story. He’s redeeming it. He’s taking the woman who walked through the fire and saying, “Now watch what I do with her.”
That’s not just theology. That’s resurrection power.
***
Resurrection Is in Your Biology
Here’s something remarkable that science confirms: you are literally designed for renewal.
Researchers who study post-traumatic growth have found that people who walk through significant hardship don’t just bounce back to where they were before. They grow beyond it. They actually develop greater emotional depth, stronger relationships, a clearer sense of purpose, and a more authentic faith than they had before the hard season.
You read that right. You don’t just bounce back. You grow beyond where you were before…over time.
That’s not just resilience. That’s resurrection built into your biology. God designed you so that the hardest seasons of your life would become the soil for your greatest growth.
Remember from Week 1 (She’s Still Breathing, But Barely), how chronic stress shrinks parts of the brain? Here’s the rest of that story: those areas can grow back. Your brain rebuilds itself through rest, gratitude, connection, and the exact kinds of tiny steps you’ve been taking over these four weeks. You’re not the same woman you were when this series started. And science says your brain knows it too.
The valley of dry bones wasn’t the end of the story. It was the setup for the miracle.
***
When I Was Truly Alive Again
I want to tell you about the moment I knew something had fundamentally changed in me. Not the moment everything got fixed. The moment I realized I was different.
It was when I decided that happiness was never going to be enough.
For years, I had been chasing happy. Happy circumstances. Happy outcomes. Happy endings. But happiness is dependent on what happens. And what was happening in my life, at a time when I had decided to ‘retire’ from the general work force, so that I could enjoy my life and spend more time being with the ones I loved and have more time to finally start my business, there was one loss after another.
My dad passed away in 2023. Within a month of his passing, I lost two of my closest friends and confidants. Then, not long after that in 2024, I found out that my ex-husband and a man I had dated both passed away a day apart. You start thinking about mortality. You stop taking things for granted. The weight of all that loss in such a short window of time was staggering.
And then there was Mom.
After Daddy passed, I started building all these beautiful plans for when she would move from the West Coast to live with us here in Florida, while her new home was being built in North Carolina. I had ideas for what we would do together, places we would go, the time we would finally have. If I’m honest, it was my escape hatch. Pouring into those plans was a way to avoid dealing with everything I was carrying personally. I was wrapping my life around her because having someone I loved that much nearby felt like safety.
But those were my plans. Not necessarily hers. And they weren’t God’s either.
Mom came to Florida. And three weeks after she arrived, she was gone.
I had lost a mother. But I had also lost my truly best friend. The one person I had been building my next chapter around.
Just one month after mommy’s passing, my father-in-law succumbed to Alzheimer’s after five years in memory care. My husband now had his own emotions and pain to navigate. There was a realization that it was now just the two of us. Both emotionally spent trying to process everything, as everything else in life continued to happen.
And suddenly, I had no one left to lean on. I was alone emotionally and had no support. Truly alone. The kind of alone where you look around and realize that every person you’d been depending on is gone, and the silence is so loud it hurts. And the one person I wanted to lean on is, is not emotionally available.
But God!
That’s when something shifted.
In that loneliness, I remembered Christ’s sacrificial love for me. It wasn’t a dramatic moment. It was more like a return. A recommitment. A quiet turning of my heart back to the One who had been there through all of it. I started focusing on Him. Not on my plans, not on my escape hatches, not on what I wanted to happen. On Him.
And what came out of that was not happiness. It was joy. True, deep, rooted joy that came from seeing everything He had brought me through. Only He could understand the depth of my hurt and sorrow. Only He knows me well enough to guide me. Only He who died for me could provide the grace and mercy it took to carry me through those losses.
Sometimes it felt like all of those losses had to happen to bring me closer to Him. By putting Him first. By letting go of the people and plans I had gripped so tightly. That’s when the peace that surpasses all understanding began to play an important role in my day to day.
We can lean on those who are close to us, whether we are bonded through family or friends or circumstances. But nobody loves me like King Jesus. Nobody. And that’s what Good Friday taught me. Not as a little girl in a Cathedral. But as a woman who had buried enough people to know that the only One who never leaves is the One who chose to die so I could live.
And here’s what ties my story to yours and to Easter itself: just as Jesus died and rose again on the third day, parts of our lives die too. Dreams die. Relationships die. Seasons end. But through the blood of Jesus Christ, we are resurrected. We come back to life. Not the old life. A new one. Kainos. Renewed. Made fresh.
***
What Alive Looks Like Now
Let me paint a picture of where you are, because I don’t think you see it clearly yet.
Four weeks ago, you were running on empty. The alarm went off and you were already tired. You said “I’m fine” so many times you almost believed it. Your faith felt flat, your joy felt borrowed, and you couldn’t remember the last time you felt truly alive.
And now?
Now you’re noticing the light again. You’re putting the phone down. You’re choosing differently. Not perfectly, but intentionally. You’re learning that contentment isn’t about having it all together. It’s about trusting the One who holds it all.
You’re praying honest prayers. You’re setting boundaries without guilt. You’re giving yourself permission to breathe, to rest, to be human.
That’s not small. That’s resurrection.
Because ‘alive’ doesn’t mean ‘perfect.’ Alive means present. Alive means you feel things again, the good and the difficult. Alive means you are no longer going through the motions. You’re going through a transformation.
And the most beautiful part? You’re not doing it alone. You never were.
***
A Letter to the Woman You Were Four Weeks Ago
If I could go back and talk to you four weeks ago, the woman who set the alarm and lay there too tired to move, here’s what I’d say:
It’s going to get better. Not all at once. Not in the way you expect. But slowly, gently, one tiny breath at a time, God is going to put you back together. And when He does, you’ll realize He was there the whole time. In the exhaustion. In the silence. In the tears you cried when nobody was watching.
I’d tell you that the valley isn’t your address. It’s your passage. You’re walking through it, not living in it.
I’d tell you that the flutter you’re about to feel isn’t your imagination. It’s the Holy Spirit reminding you that dead things don’t stay dead. Not in God’s hands.
I’d tell you that you’re going to set a boundary and survive it. You’re going to say no and not fall apart. You’re going to choose yourself and discover that it’s not selfish. It’s sacred.
And I’d tell you this: Easter is coming. Not just on the calendar. In your life. The stone is about to roll away. And when you see what God has been doing in the silence, behind the sealed door, in the places you gave up on, you’re going to understand why He let you walk through the valley.
Not to destroy you. To resurrect you.
***
Your New Season Needs New Rhythms
I want to talk about something practical, because resurrection without rhythm is just a good feeling that fades by Tuesday.
You’ve spent these four weeks making tiny shifts. A Noticing List. The One In, One Out rule. Honest prayers. Three slow breaths. Choosing rest over guilt.
These aren’t just exercises. They’re the infrastructure of your new life. And the research backs this up: studies on habit formation consistently show that lasting change comes not from motivation (which is unreliable) but from routine (which is structural). Your brain doesn’t need another burst of inspiration. It needs a rhythm it can rely on.
So before you close this post, decide: what rhythms are you taking with you? Not ten new habits. Just two or three non-negotiables that anchor you to God and to yourself.
Maybe it’s five minutes of silence before the house wakes up. Maybe it’s a weekly walk with no phone. Maybe it’s opening your Bible before you open Instagram. Whatever it is, guard it. Because that rhythm is the root system that will keep you standing when the next storm comes.
And a storm will come. But this time, you’ll have roots, deeply planted.
***
This Easter, It’s Personal
This Easter, I’m not just celebrating a resurrection that happened 2,000 years ago. I’m living one.
I’ve been in the valley of dry bones, and I’ve felt God breathe life back into places I thought were dead forever. I’ve felt the stirring when I didn’t think I could feel anything at all. I’ve chosen differently when every old habit was screaming at me to go back. And I’m standing here, alive, not because I figured it out, but because the same power that raised Christ from the dead is alive in me.
It’s alive in you too.
That’s what Paul is saying in Romans 6:4. The same resurrection power. The same God. The same promise. If Christ was raised, then we too can live a new life. Not a borrowed one. Not a pretend one. A real, breathing, rooted-in-joy, new life.
This Easter, I pray you feel it. Not the holiday. The power. The same power that rolled the stone away, that conquered death, that turned mourning into dancing and dry bones into an army.
That power is yours. Because the God who did it for Jesus is the same God who is doing it for you. Right now. In this moment. In this season.
He is risen! And so are you.
Your Turn
It’s been a pleasure to share my heart with you during my favorite time of the year. I’d love to hear what resonated with you.
Where were you when this series started four weeks ago, and where are you now? What shifted? What did God do that you didn’t see coming?
Drop it in the comments. Even if it’s just two words: “I’m alive.”
Please share this article with a family member or friend who’s still in the valley. Send her back to Week 1 and let her start the journey. She might be the woman who’s been saying “I’m fine” and meaning the opposite.
Your story could be the thing that helps her find hers.
She’s alive again…And God isn’t finished!
