easter

was good this year.

partly because we made it through the weekend without any hospital visits.

partly because i purposefully guarded enough time to really try and reflect throughout the weekend about the incredible-ness that is the cross.
good friday served sufficiently to kick me in my face with the overwhelming amount of ugliness that comes way too naturally to me. JI Packer writes that,

"Still he shows his freedom and lordship by discriminating between sinners, causing some to hear the gospel while others do not hear it, and moving some of those who hear it to repentance while leaving others in their unbelief, thus teaching his saints that he owes mercy to none and that it is entirely of his grace, not at all through their own self effort, that they themselves have found life."

it surely is only by his grace that he has chosen me for some odd reason. but i am extremely thankful that he did.

the weekend was spent with my whole crazy southern family down at edisto...pretty much doing nothing but eating because it was too cold to go fishing. :) it also included some much needed time with mom and dad assuring me that no, i'm not crazy... that its okay that i don't have my whole career planned out yet...that 22 years old is much too young to "fail at life" (okay so i was being dramatic)...and that no, they don't mind that i still need taking care of and they actually enjoy helping me stumble forward into my future... because thats what parents do when they love their children.

oh. and i got to play with my dog.

but perhaps the highlight of the weekend was when in the middle of the church service on sunday morning (in a pretty conservative baptist church on the island), a little boy with down's syndrome stood up with his arms raised and yelled "YAY FOR EASTER!!!!!" and the whole church broke into loud applause and "amens". it sort of felt like a movie or something because the moment was almost too perfect to be real. really, we should all be that excited that jesus has risen that we want to yell about it...even after easter is over.

so...YAY FOR EASTER