Happy Glorious Easter!

By entering through faith into what God has always wanted to do for us–set us right with him, make us fit for him–we have it all together with God because of our Master Jesus.  And that’s not all:  We throw open our doors to God and discover at the same moment that he has already thrown open his door to us.  We find ourselves standing where we always hoped we might stand–out in the wide open spaces of God’s grace and glory, standing tall and shouting our praise.
     There’s more to come:  We continue to shout our praise even when we’re hemmed in with troubles, because we know how troubles can develop passionate patience in us, and how that patience in turn forges the tempered steel of virtue, keeping us alert for whatever God will do next.  In alert expectancy such as this, we’re never left feeling shortchanged.  Quite the contrary–we can’t round up enough containers to hold everything God generously pours into our lives through the Holy Spirit!
     Christ arrives right on time to make this happen.  He didn’t, and doesn’t, wait for us to get ready.  He presented himself for this sacrificial death when we were far too weak and rebellious to do anything to get ourselves ready.  And even if we hadn’t be so weak, we wouldn’t have known what to do anyway.  We can understand how someone good and noble could inspire us to selfless sacrifice.  But God put his love on the line for us by offering his Son in sacrificial death while we were of no use whatever to Him.
     Now that we are set right with God by means of this sacrificial death, the consummate blood sacrifice, there is no longer a question of being at odds with God in any way.  If, when we were at our worst, we were put on friendly terms with God by the sacrificial death of his Son, now that we’re at our best, just think of how our lives will expand and deepen by means of his resurrection life!  Now that we have actually received this amazing friendship with God, we are no longer content to simply say it in plodding prose.  We sing and shoout our praises to God through Jesus, the Messiah!

*****

We know that when Jesus was raised from the dead it was a signal of the end of death-as-the-end.  Never again will death have the last word.  When Jesus died, he took sin down with him, but alive he brings God down to us.  From now on, think of it this way:  Sin speaks a dead language that means nothing to you; God speaks your mother tongue, and you hang on every word.  You are dead to sin and alive to God.  That’s what Jesus did.

*****

A whole, healed, put together life right now, with more and more of life on the way!

(from the book of Romans in “the Message” translation)

I could just keep typing and typing, copying out these rich and wonderful words!  Even on the worse days, the Holy Spirit keeps ministering to God’s children.  The bad days are a little better, the best days are a foretaste of Heaven!

One of those “best days” for me personally happened just yesterday.  We visited Mom and Dad’s church and then I was able to ride along with them to the Otesaga Resort for our buffet Easter dinner.  I felt like laughing all day, I was so happy.  Even when we didn’t quite know where we were going for a little while there on the back roads……..

Our reservations were for 2 and we arrived with time to spare and were seated at two large round tables, side by side.  We were in a nice open room with huge windows which opened out to the bluest lake.  The weather was lovely, warm and spring like.  The food was served buffet style and we all ate until we could eat no more, with laughter and fun conversations.

We were missing Ethan very much.

(My sister and her family also could not make it this year.)

Cassandra’s dear parents joined us though, which was a fun treat; we love this family!

Dave was able to play a few songs on the grand piano!!!  He was dying to get his hands on it.

LOVE IT!

And one last drive away photo from out the window!  the parents! xo

Well then, it came out in the car that Rich was in a bad mood because of something a couple of our children did that I didn’t know about until we were driving down the road and he was able to fill me in on the details.  I had wondered why he had sort of “deflated” toward the end of the meal.  My poor husband, I always have complete confidence in how he handles the issues that arise in our family.  Very thankful for that.   However, as we drove along, his irritation was causing him to retreat inside of his own thoughts and problem solving so that he wasn’t paying attention to his driving….I did notice that he was going a little fast but what with the situation and all I decided to keep my mouth shut and not nag him about speed limits.

Instead, I took pictures out my window.

You can sort of tell by these photos that we were going 60 in a 45, right?

However, the officer was merciful and decided to only ticket us not for speeding but because our vehicle had tinted windows (I guess in NY you can only have a certain shade of tint)….and even that was eventually thrown out because after all that he wasn’t able to get his computer to work- so off we went again on our merry way and at a much slower pace, praise the Lord.

We still arrived home at just the right time; bedtime for the younger children to be exact!!!  And heart to heart time for the ones who needed fatherly guidance and instruction.

All is well.

I took these photos just this morning; things are growing fast now that the snow has melted and the ground has warmed up.

April showers and all that.

I saw the first spring violet this morning when I walked Sarah to the bus; picture to follow!

You are loved, xo

~Shanda

What we believe is this:  If we get included in Christ’s sin-conquering death, we also get included in his life-saving resurrection.  Romans 6