I love Easter! It was 30 years ago this year that I gave my heart to the Lord at Easter. A big old basketball player from OSU led me to the Lord. So, this is always a special time for me to reflect on all the God has blessed me with.
Over the last many months I have done a study on James, heard a detailed study on I Peter at church, read the books Radical, Kisses From Katie, and "7". All of these books are challenging me. Mostly I'm challenged to become less and less about the things of this world and more and more about eternal things. I find myself thinking about how much "stuff" I have, what I could do to change the world for God if I gave up a lot of my stuff. I guess I'm just really feeling convicted about stewardship. Not just money, but stewardship of my time, my gifts, my love and everything else that God has entrusted me with.
So, I decided that a basket full of candy, movies, i-tunes cards, or whatever just wasn't really what I wanted to make of Easter with my kids. How could we still enjoy their childhood AND draw them to Christ? So their baskets looked a little different this year. Joe went on a mission trip to Ecuador earlier this year. So, we gave each of the kids a small nativity scene that was made in Ecuador. It's not just for Easter, but can stay out in their rooms all year long to remind them daily of God's ultimate gift to us. Jesus gave his life for us. So, giving a bunch of junk on Easter just seemed silly. We opted to pay for a little boy's education for the year in Ecuador. I know that sounds kind of honorable, doesn't it. Not really! You see, this cute little guy, Stephen, wouldn't get to attend school at all because the cost for him to have uniforms, books and tuition for the year was $80. Yes folks, $80...not $800....not $8000. So with $80....which is less than we spend on eating out in a two week period....we are sending Stephen to school this year. I was so glad to think of a tangible way to do something to honor God for Easter. Then, before I pulled another muscle patting myself on the back, I realized that Harrison is 15. Yep...15! So, we've had 15 Easters with candy and meaningless gifts. I'm embarrassed that 30 years ago I asked Jesus into my heart and was changed forever. And just now, I thought about maybe doing something to honor him at Easter.
Don't get me wrong. We always go to church on Easter. We gather with other believers and celebrate. And...we hunt eggs. And....we eat...a lot! And before we have even gotten hungry again, we eat some more. Really....30 years! No wonder God keeps putting lessons in front of me to "mess me up"!
Our Easter day was full of blessings. We gathered at the Merideth homestead for Easter lunch. This family has embraced us like we are a part of their family for many years now. Since we don't have any family here, they will never know how much that means to us. Then in the evening, we celebrated Easter with our neighbors. We all pitched in and had a feast in a couple of the front yards while the kids hunted eggs (yep....that makes 3 times that day. Nope....I have not arrived!). I looked around while I was sitting in my lawn chair eating again and thought "this is what God's church looks like!" You see, on our street we have five adopted kiddos. We have a family from India who are believers. We had every skin color on the palette represented. We had several students from Rwanda with us. I took some snapshots on the camera this time. But I filled my memory with snapshots of our neighbors visiting and enjoying each other, getting to know new friends from Rwanda, watching the littles hunt eggs, and the bigs play games up and down the street.
I love Easter!
