Remembering Easter

(Easter when our kids were ages 2, 4, and 5)

I've just been trying to remember Easter as far back as I can. It seems that as I get older, more of my life exists as memories than exists in the present. Even so, I can't seem to bring up just a whole lot of childhood Easter memories. I do remember coloring and hiding eggs. That was always a treat. We didn't do the Easter Bunny thing at our house.....my Daddy just told us about the real reason for Easter....the resurrection of Jesus. You know, I never did miss that bunny !

I do remember always feeling a special excitement on Easter Sunday. I know we should celebrate Jesus rising from the grave every day, but there was just something about everyone in the land celebrating it with you on that special day. Usually Mama would have me a new Easter dress to wear and I confess that as I grew into the teenage years there was a certain pride in my new Easter clothes. I remember in particular a yellow dress in some kind of very soft material with a yellow lace overlay and a yellow satin bow in front. The year I wore that dress I remember feeling SO grown up. The years after that all seem to run together until after I was married and we had our three little children. I followed in my Mama's footsteps, I guess, in that I tried to both emphasize the real meaning of Easter to them and also to have special clothes for them to wear. At times that was somewhat hard to do....the clothes part I mean. I loved to sew back then and usually would make something new for each of them. One particular year, I made a yellow dress for my daughter and made matching blue plaid vests for my two sons. (see picture above) Those were happy, hectic days back then.

Sometimes we would go to a family reunion and they would hide their eggs with lots of their little cousins. Other times it would just be the three of them here at home. Always there would be the eggs that they didn't find and that made their presence known in a week or two with that terrible "rotten egg smell". Alas, now our children have grown up and the egg hunting tradition has been put away. Hopefully the awe and gratitude of our Lord Jesus Christ rising from the grave will never be forgotten. No more do I wrap my children in new garments on Easter morning. They do their own shopping now. But the Lord brought it to my mind just the other day that now I can still wrap my children up, but in garments of prayer instead of cloth. To pray for my children is a great privilege and is especially rewarding when I see God at work in their lives.

I am so thankful that my parents taught me about the risen Savior and that I accepted Him as my own in 1978. What a wonderful day when we, too, will be risen with the Lord and He will put on us a wonderful new Easter garment.....He will wrap us in a robe of His righteousness. What a day that will be !

"I will greatly rejoice in the LORD, my soul shall be joyful in my God: for he hath clothed me with the garments of salvation, he hath covered me with the robe of righteousness......." Isaiah 61:10

I hope you make many happy Easter memories this year!

Marilyn

(this post is also running today at the KJV Blog Directory)