Our Easter

He is Risen!! He is Risen Indeed!!
(Avie learned to say this phrase this year, and it was fun to watch her shout it with JOY!)

This was probably the most meaningful Easter I've ever had.
Funny, given the circumstance.
I had thought social distancing and covid would put a damper on it.
But not even a pandemic can dampen the brilliance of the cross,
when rightly understood and experienced.

I woke up with the sun shining on my face, my heart crying out "He has RISEN!"
and my soul exclaiming the sentiment.
There was resonance. 
We're always supposed to be excited about Easter,
but truth be told,
it's the tradition of gathered family, boisterous laughter and delicious food that normally riles me.
Not necessarily what Jesus did on the cross.

But not this year.

This year I woke a free woman. As many of you read in this post, I spent almost four years living in bondage. Last Easter Jesus begin freeing me from the stronghold, and this Easter I feel like I was FULLY experiencing the FREE and OVERFLOWING redemptive and abundant life Christ died for us to have.

You can expect to hear more about these strongholds, but for now, I'm mulling over this process and journey in my heart and asking God for clarity in how to write about it. My prayer and hope is that my experience might touch and reach out to any of you that feel caught or trapped by a stronghold. The saddest part, is that I wasn't even fully aware or had the ability to articulate what exactly was going on in my life at the time, in regards to a stronghold.

But Easter was gorgeous, both inside my heart and outside in the physical world. It was sunny and the whole world seemed to be blooming and blossoming. The air smelled sweet and the sun warm and bright.

We started the day listening to a few different services, our home church and then a bigger mega church we used to go to. To stand in my kitchen and worship the Lord, hands raised, holding a babe, was holy.  Then we played outside in our new sandbox that Kevin built on Saturday (or as I've been calling it…my free babysitter, as the kids LOVE it hahah).

Then we went over to my parents house (We have been quarantining with my parents). My dad made a roast lamb, and my mom had a delicious spread and topped it off with angel food cake and strawberries. Is angel food cake an Easter tradition for anyone else?

We then hid the eggs so Avonlea could hunt for them! She loved it so much, it was adorable. We did about 3 rounds of easter egg hunts, haha! My parents still always do a scavenger hunt for us kids (even though we are all in our 30's, haha! We always get candy and a Christian book, so sweet.

What did you do this Easter? Sending you lots of hugs and blessing: )