An Easter to remember...

Easter is, for me, something that is always worthy of rememberance.

But this Easter held some events that cause my rememberance for some different reasons.

Our church is in the process of moving in to our first building. It is very exciting in the life of our church, and I believe for the Kingdom overall. But it has held its fair share of stress and S T R E S S....and even more stress!

It was easy for me to lose sight of why we were doing what we were doing.

So easy.

But God, in His gentleness reminded me.

At our sunrise service (the real kind, where you actually watch the sun come up...) we had 80 people. I am not one to talk about numbers alot, but it does your heart good to see people having to set up more chairs to accomodate the crowd.

And then there was Faith. This precious woman who asked if I needed help passing out bulletins and greeting people. So, we stood there together talking and greeting. And after the service she asked if we needed any help with the children during our regular service (yes, this really happened. No, she has not even been attending our church for a month. Yes, this really happened....) Once I collect my jaw from the grass, I assured her we could use her somehow.

So, she went home, changed, and came back. Just to serve. Just because she was needed.

And was she ever needed...from birth to fifth grade we had 58 kids and workers....This number is usually in the high 30s or low 40s...whoa.

We had over 200 at our second service alone.

But the best part of the whole morning...people were excited. They wanted to be there. You could feel it, see it, and hear their joy and excitement. It was palpable.

It was humbling. So humbling.

Can other people feel my excitement for what Christ has done in my life? Can other people hear my joy for the new life I have because of the Cross?

This Easter, I tasted a tiny measure of the joy and excitement that must have been present that very first Easter morning.

And it left me longing for more...