Stephanie Newton Books

This morning I got ready for church in a relatively stress-free zone. My kids are old enough to dress themselves. They had their clothes for church picked out yesterday and we all slept pretty late (my pastor husband has long since gotten over the fact that he doesn’t get to see them find their Easter baskets). But I couldn’t help but think about Easters past–the days when I stayed up all night finishing the hand-made clothes and was most likely sewing the last of the lace on as we went out the door. One particular Easter, I waited to take the pictures after church and the kids ate Cheetos and chocolate eggs in the nursery. Did I mention they had on white?

Then there was the year when I made my three year old stand by the azaleas to have a picture made, me fussing all the while that she wouldn’t smile, only to figure out later that she’d been standing in a pile of ants. Oh, and who could forget the Easter incident of 2006, when the poodles got into the bag of Easter candy the night before and ate two bags of foil-covered Hershey Easter eggs. That one will always stand out as quite a memorable holiday clean-up event.

I’m really thankful that Easter isn’t just a day on the calendar to celebrate, that ours is an Easter faith all year long. That Jesus didn’t rise from the dead for just one day, but that He remains alive and working and gets me through all the stress I bring on myself in situations like these!

One of my favorite Easter traditions: bringing flowers from home to fill the Easter cross. This picture’s from FUMC in Montgomery, AL. (Thanks to Mary Catherine Richardson for the photo