Clarkson Traditional: An Easter Egg Tree
Now let the heavens be joyful,
Let the earth her song begin:
Let the round world keep triumph,
And all that is therein;
Invisible and visible,
Their notes let all things blend,
For Christ is risen, Our joy shall have no end!
St. John of Damascus
Tonight, I finished writing a book I have had in mind for a little over a year. I turned it in just before writing this blog and it will go through a process and come out sometime next January. When I write a new book, it always forces me to examine my life, to remember God's faithfulness, and to plan/pray about living even more into ideals, so that I may end serving Jesus to my very last breath.
The title of my book will be revealed when it is final, but the subject is about taking responsibility for your choices, your faith, the legacy you will live and your actions. Getting to the end of this book makes me realize that God has indeed worked amazingly in my life. Not because I am in any way especially gifted. But the secret is that I was challenged to give my all to Him, to believe He would partner with me to work, to live by faith and to take risks and to follow Jesus' life and model to live a life of generous love.
Being at a funeral lately caused me again to reflect on the legacy I am leaving. What will people say when I go to see Jesus? You will have to read about it in the book! :)
But as we ponder His reality this week of celebrating His resurrection, we must understand again, that if this event was true, His being raised from the dead, His total forgiveness of our sins, His kingship over the whole universe and call on our lives to invest in His kingdom, then today is the day to live to the fullest, to show His reality, to believe that our faith matters, to be true to teach our children of his message, His forgiveness, His call on each of us to be stewards of His light, His life and His love.
I love Easter! The message encourages me every year. I love Jesus and his story and celebrating my adoption as His child. I love the grace that pours over my soul. I even love Easter Egg hunts and celebrating the day with friends and family.
We celebrate big in our family. (We even always have a hunt even for our 20 year olds--each child in our family has their own color of plastic egg with goodies inside--now gift cards and money! and we would color code the eggs to be more difficult for the older and less for the younger so that Joy would have a chance to actually find hers--though sometimes the younger ones were better scouts than the older. Sarah would always look for pink, Joel--blue; Nate red and Joy purple. So much fun.
Now, a few pictures from the past when Joy was in an Easter production we held at our church.
For now, I am going to sleeeeeeeeeep and take a day off. And then I will shop for food, finish decorating the house with our special Easter treasures collected over the years, and live into the moments God has given.
It is truly my wish that it will stop snowing and give us a hint of sunshine. Have a lovely week and live this week for eternity. This is the day you have to live a story worth telling.
I was working on my book in a hotel, because our internet went down and saw this! I adore roses.
It was so pretty I just had to take a picture. So this week, I wish you roses!
What is your favorite flower?