Easter

Easter. The most enjoyable and important Sunday of the year.  Spring is a beautiful reminder of the promise of new life and hope in the Resurrection. It's a time to reflect on the significance of the Savior, Jesus Christ, in our lives now, and most assuredly, in the future.  Easter is the holiday to commemorate the miracle of the empty tomb and our desire to not only celebrate the resurrected Lord then...but to proclaim that HE LIVES now.  Resurrection means He reclaimed his body and transcended into eternal life.  Because of Him, we have faith that He marked the path, and led the way, that we might also do the same.

Easter.  Like Christmas, "tis the season" and "Jesus is the Reason"...all apply to this sacred day.  We create traditions and enjoyable ways to immortalize our testimonies that we understand our role in the plan of salvation for mankind.  Today was no different, despite a few changes in our usual family traditions.  We had a very low-key year, for a change.  We did not dye eggs or even do our annual flashlight Easter egg hunt the night before.  But it was a fabulous day with friends, a sumptious feast, and honorable worship.

Easter.  I thought I was being so prepared by getting everything to assemble baskets ahead of time, before we moved. But everything got packed, loaded, unloaded, and redistributed to different parts of a bigger house.  Needless to say...I have no clue where those boxes and goodies are (and may not for awhile).  So we did a little improvising yesterday.  As I've been planning on assembling 5 cleaning baskets, one for the each of the kids to use, for their assigned chores--I had some basic baskets.  So instead of reinvesting in cheap buckets, the kids got their Easter goodies in the new cleaning baskets.  They didn't seem to mind a bit.  The baskets were filled with beef jerky, bubble gum, socks, toys, their own bottle of root beer, a DVD, and candy-filled eggs.  Tomorrow--those baskets will be transformed and refilled with Windex, Clorox wipes, a scrub brush, a Mr Clean sponge, Comet, and rubber gloves.  (I hope they think they are as cool then as they do now :)

It was a slow and sunny morning.  We're still missing 2 sets of church shoes, but not bad for all the stuff yet to go through.  The kids received their baskets before church today and were pleasant enough to pose for me. We had our friends, Kelly and Heidi Scott and their children, join us for dinner.  It was a wonderful and a relaxing (ironically) way to spend our day.  It's amazing that happy people make for happy occasions.  Nine kids and four adults did justice to a spiral ham and all the fixings. And just when we thought we couldn't eat another bite, the Scott's brought out a homemade peach cobbler and ice cream.  So...like our other special holidays, we celebrated Life to the fullest.

Easter is about the Living, the Loving, and the things that are most important to us--now and into the future.  I hope all our Easters are as pleasant as the one we just enjoyed today and that we remember that our eternal happiness depends on this blessed miracle of the Resurrection--not just for Jesus, but for ourselves.