Our Easter

My last two posts were about focusing on Jesus during Easter time.  Yep, I have become that person. It's funny how much I have changed in the past couple of years.  I used to think that people who made a big deal about Jesus during the holidays were just lame and need to get over themselves and enjoy the holiday.  That was before I met Jesus personally.  I knew all about Him, but I was about as close to him as I was the Easter Bunny or Santa Clause.  He was a nice story and I just thought he would shower me with blessings if I was good enough, like Santa, right? But once I realized that my idea of Jesus was so wrong, I began to break down those ideas to allow Him to teach me the truth.  Anyway, I could go on and on about that, but what I really want to do was talk about our Easter Sunday.

We had a great weekend with our family.  I am so blessed to have married into a huge family and we always have a good time when we get together. Our family has a lot of birthdays so we basically spent the day having birthday parties and grilling hamburgers.  There are a lot of kids in our extended family, so gatherings are always a lot of fun.  I had my nephew over to spend the night with my little man and my older girls spent the night with their girl cousins. Then Sunday, my parents came to church with us and we went out to eat together.

This weekend I realized how much I love the festivities of Easter.  I have been in this battle with myself over what traditions to change and what to keep.  My Grandmother "Meme" (pronounced Mimi, not like the little pictures), used to love holidays, too, and I think I get it from her.  My desire to change our traditions are not so that we can just sit around and have no fun and be "religious" while everyone else enjoys their holiday.  I just want to change our habits and frame of mind when going into any holiday.  Binging on candy and focusing on what each one gets for themselves is not healthy in a spiritual sense, and also in a very practical sense.  So, instead of all the Easter candy I usually purchase, I bought the kids each a book.  They loved the books more than all the candy! My struggling reader got an activity book that gave simple directions about what to draw and I think she read more yesterday than she has all week! I still gave them a few little candy treats, just not as much as I usually do, for spiritual reasons, but also to teach the kids healthy habits. My husband has a family history of heart disease so I feed our family as healthy as our meager budget allows, but I think everyone needs a spurge every now and then.

We did dye Easter eggs because it's just fun! The kids look forward to hunting for Easter eggs, and I really do too! That is one tradition that we will keep. The past couple of years I have begun a new tradition that I really love: reading about Jesus in the Bible.  I read the chapters about the death, burial, and resurrection, then we talk about it together.  I feel that it is so important that kids know about Jesus and what He did for us.

 I also want to begin a tradition of serving.  There is a nursing home down the street from us full of elderly people who are just so hungry for attention.  It is my goal that for every holiday, we go visit them and just sit for a minute and talk to each one in their room.  I want to take the focus off of what we will get and think about how we can give of ourselves. Our nation has such a "fast food" mentality.  Place an order for what you want, then get it as soon as possible or throw a fit.  I feel that our holidays have become a time of placing orders for what we want. The focus of most holidays is about getting stuff.  I want my kids to think about someone else besides themselves for a change.  Ok, that's about all I wanted to say.  I feel like this post is kind of random, but I felt that I should follow up with what we did because of the last two posts. I am learning how to incorporate Jesus into everyday life instead of just talking about Him once or twice a week. I feel that it is important to talk about that.  I would love to hear comments, questions, ideas... anything you want to say!