Easter Weekend 2011

As I sit here writing, I can hear the rain pouring from the guttering on the front porch. It seems that I may be going through some sort of mid-life something-or-other...I wouldn't necessarily call it a "crisis" as so many do. I have no desires to run out and buy a convertible sports car or run off to Vegas, unannounced, leaving my husband and daughter behind...I can't imagine going anywhere without them, nor can a envision myself driving around the back roads of Ghost Town, Oklahoma, USA, top laid back, wind blowing through my hair as I inhale the choking clouds of dust that engulf me at every spring gust the Oklahoma plains can muster.

No, its more a yearning for times past...simpler times...times of childhood where there were no worries and each day was as carefree as the day before. Not that I want to be that young again, just that I wish I could share that time with my daughter. 

Countless Easter weekends spent on the Horse Creek section of Grand Lake O' the Cherokees with my family...coloring Easter eggs in the "kitchen" of Grandpa and Grandma Puckett's fifth-wheel; playing cards and other games inside, waiting out the rain so we could go do...something...even if it was just a walk across the highway to Bernice Point or up the hill and around to Indian Hills Resort on the Creek side of the Bridge; or simply sitting in the swing on the screened porch sipping on hot cocoa or coffee or hot tea and enjoying the quiet serenity of a good, old-fashioned Oklahoma spring thunderstorm.

Today, though, it is Easter 2011. Not unlike many other Sunday afternoons, the house is quiet except for the occasional rumble of thunder or resounding, yet peaceful snores of father and daughter lost in their weekly after church nap. It is Easter, once again, and yet it's the same...or is it?  I sit here enjoying the freedoms and blessings God has endowed our family with...a roof over our heads to shelter us from the storms that rage outside and a faithful, loving God who saves me, time and time again, from the storms that rage within.  Yes, we serve a risen Saviour who dies on the cross for each and every one of us and yet he died only for me, only for you and would have done so if I were the only one. That he loved me so much, centuries before I was even but a glimmer in His eye, He bore those stripes for me, His flesh was pierced for me, the Veil was torn for me! What mortal man would have suffered and bled and died without argument, without fighting for his own life? Any mortal man would have succumbed to death just from the torture He endured leading up to His crucifixion...all for the wrongs of another?!?! All that considered, how can anyone question His purpose, His existence? And yet, on this day, thousands of years ago, He overcame the torture, the shame; death gave way to victory so you and I could live forever!

"For God so loved the world that He gave
His one and only Son, that whoever believes
in Him shall not perish but have eternal life."

John 3:16NIV