Easter evening
It was a pretty day today, and it was a good day. It started for me with a sunrise service on the parking lot of the former K-Mart at University and Asher. The location was chosen because my church, Mosaic Church of Central Arkansas, has an option to buy the property and hopes to soon complete the purchase and move there (from the former Wal Mart across the street, where we now rent space!). We talked this morning of the hope to be meeting in that building next Easter as our church home.
The morning included a breakfast at church, a worship celebration and then a service project helping to staff a market where the children at church can spend the "Bucks" they earn as incentives in their classes. The afternoon was filled with visiting, dinner with one friend and her parents (thanks, L.C.!), followed by a visit to the wonderful new home of some other friends. All in all, I got lots of hugs and lots of Easter greetings - a good day. Hope I shed as much joy and light into other people's lives as they did into mine.
It was also a pretty day to be driving around town because almost everything is blooming now. It is nearly the peak, if not a little past, for the dogwoods and red buds, and I saw some iris today and a few azaleas. It is almost more color than I can take in at one time. Because the crape myrtle starts blooming before the azaleas are totally gone, there will be lots of color from now until October.
This is my first spring in my condo, so I'm learning how the view changes with the seasons. I live right on the Arkansas River and have enjoyed views of the boats coming and going during the leaf-off season. I think I will hear them more than see them once the trees on the river bank have fully leafed out. Even so, it is a great view. It is always a refreshment and an inspiration to watch the changes that come in the springtime, as trees and bushes and plants that looked dead during the winter show new life and beautiful color.
I don't believe that this side of the grave my own body will experience that kind of renewal, but I know that on the other side of the grave, it will. And in the here and now, I experience it in my spirit, times of refreshing following times of sadness, times of hope following confusion. My hope today is that I will live in that newness of life and spread it out to those around me.
posted by Shirley Schuette @ 7:22 PM
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