Glorious Easter

I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter.

God blessed us with a wonderful day and we are thankful.

I had the most amazing peaceful day. The kind of peace that gets deep down in your soul.

I started the day by getting up at the crack of dawn and hiding the painted real eggs inside the house. I scurried around the house and found both easy and hard places. I then hid the baskets. They were empty. Believe me when they were found that fact did not go unnoticed :). Instead of filling the baskets I planned a treasure hunt for outside from which they would be filled.

I had previously made 11 clues and put each in a plastic egg. I numbered the eggs 1-11. These eggs were hidden outside. I followed my list of the answer to each clue and hid all my eggs accordingly. I even had eggs that you had to drive in a car to remote locations to find. It was wonderful fluttering around hiding my eggs. The sun was out and the air was warm. The birds were chirping, which I had not heard in nearly six months, and all was good.

After hiding my 11th egg I realized something. I had just hid the eggs in the hiding place the clue, that was in the egg, was to lead the hunters to. Example: Egg marked Clue #3, contained the clue: It's getting hot in here. I hid egg marked Clue #3 in the sauna. Egg marked Clue #4, contained the clue: Up in Smoke. I hid egg marked Clue #4 in the smoker. Are you getting the picture here? I didn't until I had hid all 11 clues. I was hiding the eggs containing the clues on where you would find them.....where you would find them. Obviously, the hunters wouldn't know the clue It's getting hot in here.......until they found the egg in the sauna. I realized I needed to hide Clue #11 where I had hid Clue #10, Clue #10 where I hid Clue #9 and so on. I had to flutter around and retrieve all my eggs and hide them again......this time correctly! I was laughing to myself. I found it quite amusing.

Afterwards I set my table outside for brunch. I was surprising everyone after church with the table I had prepared outside on the patio. I sat down for a few minutes.....listened to the water trickle and gurgle from the fountain on the patio and took in the beautiful peacefulness and glory of the day.

I then made sure everyone had their clothes for church out, pressed and ready. I then woke everybody up and got them in the shower.

I think God knew we were coming to His house and prepared a message just for us. Issues our home has been struggling with very much so as of late.

Dave has really been struggling lately with feeling the presence of the Lord in his life and trusting Him. He has been on edge, moody and quick to anger. Reconciliation and forgiveness is something Dave struggles with and is something he really has to keep in check with himself. Not only forgiveness of others, but also forgiveness of himself, and this has been falling short recently. In truth, not just Dave, but all of us were in need of a reminder of the importance of extending grace to others.

We had come to the right place.

The message at church was about reconciliation, extending grace, and what God's intention is of the man, as husband and leader in a family. It truly was a wonderful message. Dave was really touched by it and as always, God knows exactly what you need and when you need it.

I strongly recommend listening to the message if you are married or in a relationship. Even if you are not I think you will benefit from it. If you click here or on Great Exchange you will be directed to an audio recording of our Easter Sunday message.

The Great Exchange.

Following church we had brunch on the patio. Church had lasted longer than expected because of all the wonderful music, and I ended up serving brunch later than I anticipated. The problem was we were eating brunch at 1:00 and we had dinner reservations for 4:00 at a restaurant for an Easter buffet!

We ate brunch, relaxed in the sun a bit and then went to dinner :).

Following dinner we came home and Dave and I hid a large basket of filled plastic eggs outside along with pop, chips, cookies, playing cards.....all kinds of fun things. Gregory had given up pop and chips for Lent, so this became a big treat of the day.

We then had the boys come out (with their frilly Easter baskets with ribbon streamers flowing (nothing a 14 and 16 year old boys love more than "frolicking" around the yard with their beautiful baskets and ribbons :) ). Actually, Justin didn't mind. Kyle kept his in the house and would find some eggs, bring them in the house to his basket, and come out and find some more.

They hunted for the eggs and goodies and also for the treasure hunt clues. They had to go look in parks, on docks, in trees. It was a lot of fun and I plan on doing it again next year.

Can you guess what their "treasure" is?

Last clue:

Was a hit by the "Village People". You now belong!!

Dave (who also was part of the treasure hunt) seen the words "hit" and "Village" and knew. Kyle got it right away. Justin and Gregory ran to the computer to find out who the "Village People" are and what hit songs they have had. As soon as they seen the song........they got it :)

Who doesn't know who the "Village People" are?!?

It was a glorious day.

For Your glory. For our good.