April Story of the Month: I Heard the Clouds Say Something That Easter Morn

Easter Sunday, Late 1960s

The Lowe Family did not miss church on Easter Sunday.

Mom and Dad didn’t think twice about skipping it every other Sunday of the year, but attending the Easter service was a must do. It was like they figured the liveliness of Spring stirred God into bursting from his year-long patience with them. It was time to get into the pews before they felt his wrath.

Plus there was that whole “sin” and “Jesus died, but he’s alive” thing that they told us Easter was all about.

Mom and Dad had both been brought up to know God and the Christian faith. They shared those beliefs with us (me and five other siblings) in unique ways. For example, Mom told us that all the bad things we did until we were teenagers counted as sins against her. We felt crummy about that. So, Mom had a flock of well-behaved children; we lived in fear of being responsible for her being sent to hell.

I love my Mom and Dad. With all that life had handed to them, at least they tried. Besides the guilt they felt for not attending church throughout the year, perhaps they thought sitting under a fire-breathing pastor on Easter Sunday would burn off the thick layers of sin we had piled on all year.

∞

As a child, Christmas was our main celebration of Christianity. My mother loved Jesus through her Christmas celebrations, and she made sure her children did, too. My young self cared little about my parents’ guilty feelings and only a bit more about Jesus’ death on the cross. Better than that, Easter meant new clothes and shoes, and the tangy smell of vinegar. Boiling water steamed up the windows and we’d draw pictures with our fingers. There was that miracle of colored drops transforming a stupid egg into a thing of beauty. That was Easter for me.

The Lowe kids looked sharp as usual on that Easter Sunday: Three girls in frilly dresses and pressed hair, and three boys in button-down shirts and pressed pants.

As we climbed into the car, I noticed the clouds. Cotton candy thick, the type that stirred a child’s thoughts and imagination. They were not unusual for the season, but on that particular morning, when I looked at those clouds, I felt like their fullness and brilliance were saying something to me. Something about God.

And right then I wondered: Did God ever think about me?

∞

The preacher’s sermon was about Nicodemus, and he would shout and pound on the podium when he said the name:

Nicodemus! He came to Jesus at night.

Nicodemus! Didn’t want nobody seeing him there.

Nicodemus! You must be born again, Jesus said. Nicodemus!

He went on and on about this man who was afraid of his friends and didn’t understand a mystery. I wasn’t impressed: Okay, so, this Nicodemus man believed in Jesus. Good for him. I want my Easter basket. When will this be over?

And then the preacher started talking about Jesus coming back, and that Jesus would use the clouds to get here.

Clouds? I perked up.

“He died, YES! he rose, YES! and one day, I said, ONE day he will return!”

Return?

“To take you home to heaven, children!”

Heaven?

“He’s coming in the CLOUDS, brothers!”

The clouds? I looked out the window.

“In clouds of GLO-ry, sisters!”

Sisters? Me?

I had heard it all before, but this time that return in those clouds to take me sounded both scary and … wonderful.

The preacher was a sight. He was yelling about a rapture and a new earth, and he was taking throaty breaths between sentences, and he was slapping the podium, harder, harder, faster, faster, like it was the devil telling him to stop preaching, stop it, STOP IT!

Because someone’s heart was being moved.

∞

“The Crazy Part” was my childish name for what came next. Everyone started singing with the choir. Men, women, and children were up, clapping, shifting, and stomping. Soon the Lowes were, too. It was infectious. Since church wasn’t the norm, I was a bit wary of acting that way in God’s house, like it was our living room with the Top 40 hits blasting from the radio.

The piano player was moving side to side, his shoulders working into a chunky rhythm of soulful song. Women were hopping on one leg, up and down the aisle and in the front of the pews, doing that dancing, “slain in the Spirit,” where those women would let go and let God.

This both frightened and humored me, especially when the old ladies fell to the ground, shaking and writhing and screaming. And I was embarrassed because they were sharing all of their female garments while they were down there. They didn’t seem to care. I looked at Mom, her eyes focused straight ahead on the preacher like nothing unusual was happening.

My brothers and sisters were trying hard not to laugh because we knew to whom that sin would go.

Soon the fans were fanning and the women were settled. The congregation was excused. The Lowe Family had appeased their God for another year.

∞

We went home to the Easter baskets and all was well. Except, I kept thinking about those clouds. I walked to my bedroom and went to the window.

I looked out.

The afternoon sun was shining through the clouds just so. Majestic, soft and inviting. Glory!

Was he coming today?

I tried to imagine what home would be like in heaven. “Happy” was the word that settled in my heart. Things in my earthly home had not been going well. Mom and Dad were yelling, cussing, hitting, throwing. They talked about Jesus like he was something special, but their lives showed me another story.

I stayed there by the window, nesting in the hope of a safe and happy Day. Then the clouds moved on and I gave in to the enticement of kitchen smells and sibling voices.

Things were back to normal. Dad was fixing lunch and singing along with the radio. Mom was in the yard with a cigarette and a neighbor. Brothers and sisters were in front of the television, satisfied with their jelly beans and marshmallow bunnies. I grabbed my basket and joined them.

Easter Sunday. Tomorrow’s Monday.

∞

It took me decades of selfishness and sorrow, topped with the frustrations of motherhood, to finally listen to a God who deserved my attention. When I made the great exchange at age 30, and gave my life to Jesus Christ for his, I remembered that cloudy Easter morn. Through the clouds, the preacher, the singing, the rolling-around old ladies — even our rare church attendance — Jesus the Risen Savior had been calling my name.

My greatest regret is that I did not answer him sooner.

But drops of grief can ne’er repay
The debt of love I owe;
Here, Lord, I give myself away;
‘Tis all that I can do.

(From the hymn “Alas, and Did My Saviour Bleed?” by Isaac Watts, 1707)