Easter

I absolutely love Easter. Along with falling in line with Spring, it is such a glorious time of renewal.  A couple of years ago, I spent Easter in Scotland.  I got up before sunrise and walked down to the beach and from the West Sands, I watched the most gorgeous display of colors fill the sky and ripple across the waves of the North Sea.  It was an Easter like no other, and will stay with me for the rest of my life.  This year was more of a typical Easter for me.  I went Shreveport to visit family and attend church at St. Paul's United Methodist Church where I grew up going. The church recently got a new pastor, Rev. Beverly Connor, and she is unbelieveably fantastic!  Her sermon was dynamic and touching and spiritual and wonderful and oh, I could go on.  She was just that good.  I was surrounded by my wonderful family, little girls in springy dresses and white stockings, good food and loud laughs, and a striking awareness of love and grace.

Jesus suffered every pain and every humiliation possible from man... and then from God.  And then He died.  He died an absolute death, one that we will never have to face.  Jesus, who had not one iota of glory on earth, died for our sins, and for our pain, and for our humiliation, descended into Hell taking the worst parts of us with Him.  But by His eternal power, He rose from the dead.  He defeated death for us.  We can never be separated from God because Jesus sacrificed himself for us.  He died a criminal's death, a temporal and human death, and then conquered it.  He then ascended into Heaven, to His Kingdom, with full and eternal glory.  There's no story or miracle like it.  Thousands of years after His death, Jesus' blood still washes me clean,and His love is eternal along with the grace we have been given.  Oh, it just makes my heart swell with gladness.

And now my belly can swell with gladness, too.  I get to eat cookies again, and trust me, I've already begun to make some real progress on a box of Girl Scout cookies.