This week was Spring Break. I LOVE SPRING BREAK! It’s like an early taste of summer… Staying up late, sleeping even later, and spending lazy time doing things that don’t fit into the normally crammed full weeks. Although we stayed at home, it’s been a refreshing mental and physical break – at least for the kids and for me. James – he just had his regular week. 😉
One of the “less fun” things the kids and I did was to deep clean some of our home. What a wonderful feeling it is when the dust disappears and the floors shine. As we did some “spring cleaning”, I also prepared the house for Easter. Tomorrow, we begin preparing our hearts.
One way I prepared our home for Easter was to make an Easter Tree. I downloaded Ann Voskamp’s wonderful {free}devotional book called “Trail to the Tree”. You can download the book if you will sign up for her blog e-mails. A link will be at the bottom of each e-mail. Trail to the Tree has 17 days of devotionals leading up to Easter, and decorations to hang each day on the Easter Tree. You can sign up for her e-mail here: www.aholyexperience.com
I took some dead branches James trimmed off of some trees, tied them together, and lightly spray painted them white (accidentally along with a bush or two… oops). Then I placed them in a vase full of river rocks.
It looked a little bare, so I grabbed a few small vases to fill with cuttings from the yard.
The yard is bursting with color – but what struck me as I started collecting for our Easter Tree is that most of the beauty I gathered is considered “weed.” or something so common it’s not thought of as valuable.
How fitting that beauty found in blooming weeds and common plants would grace the foot of the Easter Tree. Dead branches brought to a new life. Covered white, made clean. Isn’t that what God does in us through Jesus {because of Easter}? Makes life and beauty and purpose and cleanliness through dead and common humanity?
(Next, I’m taking some plain, inexpensive plastic eggs, and turning them into this: (via this website) to add to the tree.)
As I was working on the tree today, my heart overflowed with gratitude for this thought:
Praise the Lord ~ He doesn’t see us as “weeds, common, dead or cheap!” He sees us as beautiful and valuable in His sight… Created by Him… Created for Him… Created to live to His delight and joy.
And we can only be full and fulfilled and beautiful if we are found in Him, belonging to God through Jesus Christ.
Dear friends, don’t let this Easter come and go without knowing for sure that you belong to Jesus, knowing Him as your Lord and Savior. We all find our true filling at the foot of the Easter Tree… the Cross of Jesus Christ… who paid the price for the wrongs we have done, and who victoriously defeated death and is alive
and active in the lives of all who love Him today. If you do not know Jesus in this way, click here. This post will explain everything. It’s the most important thing you can do with your life, and the only thing that will eternally last. Oh friends, if you give your lives to Jesus Christ, please let me know! It would be my greatest privilege to pray for YOU!
I’ll be sharing some other ideas in preparing for Easter in the upcoming posts. May the Lord truly fill you with Himself as you seek Him at the foot of the Easter Tree…
“It is in union with Him that you have been made full.” Col. 2:10 (Jewish New Testament)