Easter

    When I was a little girl, I enjoyed all our annual Easter traditions.  On Saturday night, we got the Easter baskets down from the top shelf of the closet and each of us kids picked one to use.  The one in the photo was always my favorite!  Then on Easter morning we would search and search and search to find our Easter basket which had been hidden by the Easter Bunny somewhere in the house.  Magically, Mom always knew where they were, so she would give us clues if we asked for them.  I always seemed to find someone else's basket before mine, so I had to learn how to pretend like I hadn't found anything, so I didn't give it away for one of my siblings who may have been searching nearby.  Inside my basket was usually a Reese's peanut butter egg, a chocolate bunny, and plastic eggs full of M & Ms and jellybeans.  I always loved Easter morning.
    When I was a girl, we went to the Lutheran Church just down the road from my house.  I remember attending the Good Friday services there and how they always used a big piece of sheet metal for the sound effects of loud lightning and thunder when they read about Jesus dying on the cross.  They flicked the lights on and off too.  It was always so dark and sad and a bit scary for a child.  I remember that we had to leave in silence and I NEVER liked that!   Then came Easter, and the church always smelled so strongly of Easter lilies.  The music was festive and triumphant.  I always loved Easter morning.  I understood, even as a child that God had done something amazing through Jesus - He had conquered death!  Wow - God is amazing!  How MUCH Jesus loved us!  Now Jesus can live in me!?! 

    The message of Easter is powerful.  It's full of hope and celebration and reflection and grace!  We can have hope because Jesus conquered death, so He can help us with any and all of our little problems and worries.  We can celebrate our Jesus and the fact that He WANTS to live in our hearts and have a personal relationship with us.  Taking time to reflect on God's gift of salvation can be both humbling and encouraging.  I can never repay Him for the price He paid at Calvary.  But, I can do my best to live my life the way I think He would want me to live it:  full of love, gratitude, compassion and joy.  I don't always live that way, though.  I make mistakes.  I mess up.  But, God's grace is sufficient.  It's new every morning.  It's new every minute!  His arms of compassion are wide open to me, even when I mess up.  I know my God loves me.  I believe that even if I were the only person on earth that first Easter, He still would have died for me.  What a thought!  What a Savior!
   

Patty and Jennifer, Easter, 1997