Ever since I was little my father always told me stories about amazing things that had happened in the past. My favorite story is about Moses because it shows God’s power and explains the reason we celebrate Passover. He sometimes tells about the birth of Jesus, which he was able to see. He said he and his friends were watching the sheep when an angel told them that Jesus had been born and where and how to find Him. Then a huge chorus of angels came and sang, “Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace towards men.” They shone so bright that he and the other shepherds had to look away. When the angels left they all went to find the little baby then angel had spoken about. They saw Him lying in a manger with a woman and a man looking on. They slowly walked toward them and immediately bowed down at the awesome sight of their new king.
He even tells me of miracles he’s seen Jesus perform. I want to see Him with my own eyes. Sometimes I imagine Him walking past my house and coming to greet me and be my best friend. He talks to me and shares His wisdom and performs a miracle for me to see and believe. But I know it’s just a fantasy. Why would Jesus, the most powerful and perfect man on earth, stop by MY house? I continue to work all day until I’m so exhausted, I can’t go on anymore.
The next day, I feel so horrible. My body is so weak and I’m so hot but so cold at the same time. I can’t move. I can barely breathe. My mother and father come in and comfort me and hold me. Nothing helps.
“Father,” I whisper. “Am I going to die?”
“No!” he answers sternly. “You are not going to die. You will be fine. Just wait it out.”
Mother dabs me with cold water.
“Jairus…this doesn’t look good,” I hear her say. “You must find Him. Please.”
“Rachel, it won’t help…nothing can help.”
“Find Him. He can heal her. You know He can.”
“Alright. I will leave immediately.”
“Hurry, Jairus. She doesn’t have long…”
The pain is overwhelming me. I do not know who Mother and Father were talking about. My mind just isn’t right and isn’t functioning. Two days go by, and Father is still gone. Mother sits and cries by my bedside but she keeps watching me and making sure I’m still awake. Although, I don’t know if I can be strong much longer. I’ve held on for her and for Father, but it is getting so hard to keep holding on.
“Mother,” I whisper to her.
“Yes, my dear?”
I open my mouth to speak, but nothing comes out. I am just too weak to even talk. I feel so tired. Not much in pain anymore, but simply tired. The last thing I hear is Mother crying out to me, “No baby! You can’t leave us! Not now! Hold on! Hold on…”

“Jesus! Jesus!”
“Who is calling me?”
“Jesus, it’s my daughter. She is very sick and may be dying. If you could just place your hand on her…”
“Don’t be afraid; just believe and she will be healed. I will go to your house and see your daughter.”
“Thank you, Jesus.”
The men walked to the house and arrived to some very tragic news by one of Jairus’s servants.
“Master, your daughter…”
“No…”
Jairus ran into the house and held his daughter in his arms and wept. Jesus walked into the house with Peter, John, and James.
“Stop weeping. She is not dead, but asleep.”
Those in the room laughed as they were positive she was dead. Jesus walked over to the girl and placed His hand on her head and said, “My child, get up!”

Heaven. I saw Heaven but I did not go there. I saw God and He told me that it was not my time yet. I feel my eyes open. You can never know the experience of dying and coming back to life. It’s incredible. I look over and the first thing I see is the loving eyes of Jesus. I get off the bed and throw my arms around Him. My fantasies have all come true in this one second. I can hardly believe it’s even real. I then hug my parents and even the men Jesus had brought into my house with Him hug me.
“Thank you.”
I follow Jesus around everywhere after that. I see Him perform miracles and share His wisdom with me and others. He stays in town for a long time and eventually He has to move to another city to preach there. I am very sad to see Him leave, but I know I will see Him again. My father explained later of miracles he had heard others talk about. One was that he fed over five thousand people with just five loaves of bread and two fish. He gave blind people sight, and healed the lame. He made deaf people hear and made those who were dead live again like He did with me. He also told many stories to get his point across. I had heard many of his stories while he was here. I especially liked the one about a Samaritan who helped a man beaten almost to death after no one else would. I miss Jesus very much…
My family and I travel later for a few days for Passover. We are visiting my grandmother and grandfather. I hope I see Jesus there. I do see Jesus, but the crowd is so big around Him that I cannot get to Him. I am filled with disappointment and sorrow. He makes eye contact with me and looks at me lovingly. I was actually a little scared that He wouldn’t remember me. But He does and that’s all I really want.
In the afternoon the next day, I look out of my window and see Jesus on a donkey parading through the streets. Everyone is putting their most expensive garments and palm branches in the road. I run outside and as He passes by me, there is a feeling of love inside me that I have only felt one other time.
“Hosanna! Hosanna!” I shout with the people around me. I can’t stop smiling. Jesus fills me with a newfound hope and joy.
We spend a week with my grandparents until we receive the horrid news on Thursday late at night…
Jesus’s disciples come running through the town shouting over and over that Jesus has been captured by Roman soldiers and that it was one of their own who betrayed Him. I take the news to my family and we try to gather outside of the place where Jesus is standing before the Sanhedrin. They question Him endlessly but He says nothing back.
“Are you the Christ, The Blessed One?” they ask harshly.
“I am,” He answers back.
Blasphemy. We all know that He really is the Christ, but they refuse to believe it and consider it blasphemy. And anyone who commits blasphemy is…put to death. The guards put a blindfold on Him and start to hit Him as hard as they can and spit on Him and beat Him. I wince with each blow. I see Peter standing in the courtyard by a fire with other women. They ask him if he’s disciple. He shakes his head. I am so surprised by this answer. We all know he is. He was with me when I was raised from the dead. A rooster crows and Peter takes off sobbing. If only I could know the thoughts behind people’s actions.
I later get news that Jesus has to be whipped before seeing Pilate, a man with much power. We try to see Pilate’s decision. He is the one to determine of Jesus is innocent or not. Jesus comes to him and I feel sick at the sight of Him. There is more blood and rips in his skin than there is flesh. I hear his screams as the whips with rocks tied to them strike Him echoing in my head, even though I did not hear them. Pilate stands before them and gets a horrible criminal named Barabbas, known for murdering many people before, to stand next to Jesus. He demands that the people choose one to go free. I sigh with relief. Surely the people must choose Jesus. He’s an innocent man and the other is a cold-blooded killer. But the people call out Barabbas’s name over and over again. I feel like I’m going to throw up. Why would they want a murderer set free? Pilate asks the people to choose a punishment for Jesus. I silently beg that it’s not too awful and is painless. All I can hear is “Crucify him!” Then Pilate utters the five worst words ever to be spoken in history. “Take him and crucify him.”
My family all begins to sob. The guards twist a crown of thorns and shove it on Jesus’s head. They also drape a purple robe around Him and mock him and beat Him again. They then force Jesus to carry a large wooden cross up a long pathway to the place where He is to be crucified. He drops the cross several times and it lands on Him. I can’t take this much longer. A man is pulled from the crowd and carries the cross the rest of the way. My Savior is being tortured so horribly. How can this be happening?
He makes it to the top of the hill and the soldiers force Him to lie down on the cross. I see one take a hammer and a nail. I can’t look, but at the same time, I can’t look away either. He screams in awful pain as the nails drive deeper into His wrists and feet. I know my family doesn’t want me to look, but they can’t stop me from looking on. The cross is raised up and people run and bow down in front of Him sobbing uncontrollably. I run up to His feet. My fingers touch the cold steel of the nail and return to me drenched in His blood.
“Jesus! Jesus!” everyone calls out His name over and over. I look up at Him with tears running down my cheeks a mile a minute. His eyes show understanding and sorrow for me. In His gaze, I understand why this had to happen.
He looks up and cries out, “My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?”
“If you’re so high and mighty, come down from the cross.”
“He saves others, yet He cannot even save himself.”
They mock Him endlessly. More soldiers give Him a sponge soaked with vinegar…a sour wine…
The soldiers take a spear and poke Him hard with it in His side. Blood and water flows out of the puncture wound onto the ground. I gag at the sight of it, but it only makes me cry harder.
“It is finished…” He whispers. I see his chest rise up and down for the last time and his head sag forward. The people around me start wailing as the great cry fills the air. Warm tears roll down my cheeks and make a dark circle in the dirt. Suddenly, the ground starts to shake and we all panic. I try to find my parents and grasp onto them, but in the confusion, I cannot see them at all. So instead I go back to the cross and others follow suit.
“Truly this man was the Son of God,” I hear a soldier say. I look him in the eye and nod as more tears come. He looks away finally realizing that everything was true.
My mother comes up behind me and takes me away. Her eyes are red, as are my father’s.
“The veil in the temple was torn,” Mother says.
The veil was torn? How could that be possible?
Two days later, I am looking out my window still thinking of Jesus. He must’ve known what He was doing. Suddenly, I notice Peter and the other disciples running down the road shouting, “Jesus is alive!” My heart nearly flies out of my chest! I run outside as fast as I can to try and catch Peter.
“Peter!” I call. He turns and runs toward me. “Can it be true? Is He really alive?”
“Yes, we have seen Him. Mary Magdalene went to the tomb this morning, but it was empty and an angel of the Lord told her that He is risen. Then He presented Himself to her. And just now, we were meeting with the door locked and He appeared to us!”
“He’s alive!” I shout with joy. Peter hugs me and runs off to tell others the incredible news. “Mother! Father! Jesus has risen!”
“This cannot be true,” Mother says.
“But it is true! Mary Magdalene saw Him and so did the disciples!”
“It is a miracle!”
Yes, it truly was a miracle. Because Jesus once again proved his might by coming back from the dead. When I saw Him again, I understood everything. He died for us so that we can be with Him and His Father in heaven forever. Without Him, we would be separated from Him forever because we are sinners. I will trust in Jesus all of my life and I know that I will be with Him again when I have died.