Happy Easter (Part Two)

I love this painting "He is Not Here" by Walter Rane

My husband asked his family on facebook today what Easter means to us. This is what I replied:

"I love what Dustin said about how without the Resurrection there would be no purpose to this life, nothing to look forward to in the next life, nothing to live for. What Easter means to me is hope. That no matter how bad it gets in this life--and it can get pretty darn bad--there is always Jesus to give us hope. He suffered for our sins literally. He has felt every single pain we have or ever will feel. I don't know how he did it, but I know that he did. And he did that for every single person who has ever lived on this earth. What an unimaginable gift. Jesus went through all that, and death itself, and still rose again on the third day, making it so that we can all do the same one day. We can all be raised from death and reunite with our loved ones, because Jesus did first. I will never fully comprehend the magnitude of what he did for me, and I feel such gratitude and love."

It's nice to have Easter egg hunts and dye eggs and make Easter baskets for the kids. (We don't really do much with the "Easter Bunny" because personally I never really got into the whole Easter Bunny thing. It always seemed really weird and made-up to me. Sitting on Santa's lap is bad enough, but a giant scary bunny who lays eggs? Yikes.)  I like doing fun traditions like those, even though they don't have anything to do with the reason we celebrate Easter. We typically do those activities on Saturday, and then devote Sunday to remember Christ's Resurrection. I tried to show Lia a couple of Easter videos, but they were scary to her and Dustin pointed out that it's probably not a good idea to traumatize her with scary images of Christ's crucifixion at this age. We don't want her to be scared of Jesus! So instead I showed her pictures of Jesus after being raised from the dead, and tried to explain the Atonement and Resurrection to her in the most basic, least scary way possible. I don't really know how much she understood, but at least we tried to focus on Jesus and not the Easter Bunny. I guess I'll just have to be patient and realized that she will slowly understand more and more about Christ as she gets older. I hope my girls can have a close relationship with their Savior, and turn to Him in all things. I believe in Christ the Son of God, and I believe He is my Savior. Happy Easter!