Happy Easter!

What a great Easter! Whit and I came up to Baltimore for the weekend. He has done Easter with my family every year except when I was in Venezuela, and it was fun to come together this time as a married couple. Evan came too, but Courtney went on to visit her family so we missed her this weekend! Maybe next year. ;) We went to church last night - and the place was still packed. It was kind of odd seeing the "He is Risen" signs up front and celebrating Christ's resurrection when it was only Saturday night...but He is really risen so I guess it makes sense when you think about it un-symbolically. The service was pretty good, but what I couldn't stop thinking about was all the people in the room who I knew were only there because it's Easter. My heart was so burdened for them, like I have never experienced before at an Easter service. It made the lyrics we were singing mean so much more, that God is mighty to save - He conquered their graves. I hope that many people understood the true Gospel message - that Jesus changes lives - and that He will change theirs.

I loved this quote from Eugene Peterson:

"You don't live in a mechanistic world ruled by necessity; you don't live in a random world ruled by chance; you live in a world ruled by the God of Exodus and Easter. He will do things in you that neither you nor your friends would have supposed possible."

I just love the reminder that Christianity changes your life. Because Jesus died, God works in us through the Holy Spirit to literally make us different people - people who aren't angry or bitter, discouraged and hopeless, lost or alone. "Thanks be to God who gives us victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!" (1 Corinthians 15:57)

This morning we woke up, had a beautiful breakfast that my mom made (english muffin french toast with fruit and honey yogurt), opened fun Easter baskets (with Tim Tams and Loft tank tops!), and then all sat down and Evan narrated the Easter story to us from the Bible, with commentary. It was great to go so in depth and think about things differently. We also did a couple of fun Bible quizzes based on the Easter story. For one of them, we heard made-up quotes about the resurrection from a first-person perspective, and we had to guess who "said" it. I loved this one from the angel who got to announce Jesus' ressurection:

"I was there for the most glorious moment of earth's history! I witnessed the greatest event that has ever occurred, and the Lord allowed me to help Him with some of the details and remain behind to tell others the good news!"

We had great family time after that too - playing at the park (doing pull-ups, walking Lady, and even getting ice cream from the ice cream truck), playing games, eating a fabulous dinner, and ending the day with a movie. Saturday was really fun, too - we shopped til we dropped at Arundel Mills, along with thousands of other people (I'm a bad estimator, but it is a huge mall and it was completely packed). It was so good to spend time with family and celebrate our Savior!