Weeks and weeks ago, I was walking down the seasonal aisle at the grocery store when I stopped to look at the Easter candy. I spotted chocolate bunnies who were posed as if they were taking selfies.
I thought of my niece in college several states to the north. I knew she would be amused. When she studied abroad, she and her mother and I sent selfies to one another every Sunday—and it helped us stay connected across the miles.
But Easter was so far off that I left the bunnies on the shelf.
Then yesterday, I stopped at the store again. A few of the selfie bunnies were still sitting there.
I couldn’t resist. I picked a pink one and a blue one, paid for them, and loaded them into my car.
As I did, of course, I posed for a photo with them. It seemed appropriate to take a selfie with the selfie bunnies. I sent the photo to my sister—the mother of the bunny-recipient-to-be and told her I would mail the bunnies to her house. Then I went to work.
I left the bunnies in the car because the sky was gray and there was a chill in the air. I worked all day, went to handle school pick-up, and went home.
It was only when I opened the back of the car to pull out the bunnies that it occurred to me the bunnies might not have survived. It might have seemed like a cool day, but the sun came out. It was warm enough inside the car for the hollow chocolate bunnies to melt into unrecognizable shapeless masses.
I could never ship these bunnies north in time for Easter. They were no longer bunnies.
There was only one thing I could do. I took another selfie with the melted bunnies. Then I texted it to my niece and told her the whole story—how I saw them, knew she would love them, how I planned to send them to her, waited in hopes the price would go down, finally bought them, and then left them to melt in my car.
She thoroughly enjoyed the story. In fact, she may have enjoyed the tale and the selfies of me with the unmelted and then melted bunnies more than she would have enjoyed actually receiving the chocolate bunnies. We will never know.
What is clear is that I was impractical and overly optimistic when I left the bunnies in the car. I definitely could have handled that better. That’s the kind of realization you have in the waning days of Lent. The chocolate bunnies are a minor—and amusing—misstep. I have failed in so much of what I wanted to take on for Lent. And yet here comes Easter.
What is so wonderful about these final days before Easter, though, is that we are entering such a sacred time. Over the next few days, there is room for us to enter Jesus’ story. We can walk with Jesus. We can pray with him as he suffers. We can stand at the foot of his cross and witness his infinite love. And we can know and trust that the story does not end here.
These days offer us a chance to look at ourselves—whether we’re selfie-takers or not—and consider our role in the greater story. But even more important, if we keep our eyes on Jesus, we may just open ourselves up to a deeper relationship with our Lord and Savior.
And…P.S. Don’t leave the Easter candy in the car.