Tuesday, April 2, 2013

Reflecting on Easter


This Easter was a lot different than Easter's past.
It was my first Easter that my family didn't have a big get-together  It was the first Easter that Seth and I had by ourselves. No Easter baskets, no presents, no morning church. 

Two months ago I probably would have told you that we would be home with our families, visiting our old church, having a normal Easter...but God changed our hearts. You see, I havent been feeling at home in our new church for the last few months. I have yearned to go back home and visit Hope Church, to be with our families, to not have to adjust to being somewhere new because it's so dang hard sometimes. 

I didn't want to put in the effort to committing somewhere new, to serving, to opening up to a new group of people, to meeting new girlfriends. Part of this is fear, part of this is pride, and most of it is just pure laziness. Jumping into the unknown is scary and hard and time consuming, we all know I don't have extra time to spare!

But God has been working on me. Working on my stubborn little heart. I've been putting in time, confessing my fears, my thoughts, my dislikes. He's given me some awesome women to meet and share life with. He's given us a new home. 

Here's most of our neighborhood group -- they have made Monday night my favorite night of the week.

Last month Seth and I felt a call. A call to be at Garden City Church for Easter. A call to become members. I felt the call to finally commit. To leave my stubbornness at the cross and trust Jesus for what He is doing here.

Easter at Garden City couldn't have been more glorious. Not because there is something overwhelmingly special about the music, or the preaching, or the people -- but it is where God wanted us. Resting in His plan is a glorious thing.

And not to mention that three ladies from our neighborhood group got baptized after the service. One of those three ladies has become a very close friend of mine. I know that God picked Michaela to be my friend when we moved here, He is so good at picking friends for us.

This is us a couple weeks ago at the Zoo!


Michaela has a powerful story of how God fought for her and saved her. Watching her get baptized was more beautiful than I could imagine.

Sonja and Stephanie are newcomers to our neighborhood group and it is awesome to watch how God put it on their hearts to get baptized and bam, here they are. One of the met Jesus less than THREE weeks ago -- how good is He?!



Seth's parents joined us at Garden City -- our pastor used to be the college pastor at their church so they actually knew a bunch of people at the service! I love when worlds collide like that, it reminds me of the fact that we are all one Church.
Easter this year was different. We went out for dinner instead of cooking something fancy. I didn't take any pictures of Seth and I, even though I had bought a cute dress for the occasion. We didn't do baskets or eggs or candy. We didn't go home like we had planned.

But we watched Jesus save lives. We got to celebrate His resurrection. We got to celebrate Him bringing our dead hearts alive through baptism.

We rested in His plan.
I'd like to start doing that more often.
Listening, discerning, praying, following.

"Many are the plans in a man's heart, but the counsel of the Lord, it will stand."
Proverbs 19:21