Easter

I remember as a child spending Easter in various places including our Grandparents house when they lived in Matthews, NC. We would wake up at a crazy hour (which was really only like midnight or even earlier) a few days before and drive through the night. My parents were smart in doing this because that meant that their 4 children (this was before the time of Megan) were sleeping the whole way down. We would arrive sometime the next morning/ afternoon and I remember the smell of spring, the south has a distinct smell that I love. On Easter Sunday we would wake up and hunt for our Easter baskets...get all dressed up in frilly dresses with white tappy shoes and Easter hats, take pictures in the front garden and head off to their church for an Easter breakfast. Then after church we would go back to my Grandmas and die Easter eggs, my Aunt Beth always coordinated that, go on an Easter egg hunt, and then have a big family Easter dinner. It was glorious!

Sometimes I wish I hadn't grown up, that I could still just be told what to do and not have to miss out on things like this. The past 3 years I have been in school for Easter. My freshman year I went to church at Thomas Road and then had chinese for lunch while I studied Anatomy. Last year I was able to go to a friend's family in NC for Easter Sunday which was great, but I missed out on Easter dinner on a count of needing to head back to school. This year my family stopped by on their way to the beach and we went to Thomas Road together and then shared a nice turkey sandwhich meal with a delicious hashbrown casserol (a tradition for my family) in my dining/ living room. Easter just doesn't have the same feel without a big dinner and family gathering.

But that's not what Easter is all about. It is intended for us to come together as a family, but to celebrate that Christ is risen again! Have you ever noticed that Easter falls right at the beginning of spring? When everything is begining to bloom and rise out of the ground. Maybe I'm stretching it here, but there is just something about Spring when everything is new and fresh that helps remind me that because of Christ we are new and fresh too! It may not be the ideal way to celebrate it, and it's probably going to be the same for the next couple of years...but no matter what way you eat dinner or where you are, Easter is not about the food or the easter baskets, or dieing the eggs. It has a deeper meaning, like most other holidays that we celebrate that we can't over look or let it become over shadowed by the worldly traditions...

Thanks for keeping your promise Jesus!