Easter Weekend Reflections

Well, it was an extremely busy weekend for me. But satisfying. As I look back, I was with all kinds of people in all kinds of ways. As always, I thank God for this full and rich life that God has given me.

• At our Maundy Thursday service we passed a prayer blanket around the congregation for Elma who is dying. And some of the weekend was spent talking to her family in advance about funeral and arrangements and visiting her and praying over her. I am not sure how aware she was of my presence, but I always trust that God hears our prayers and that often prayers affect the person themselves in ways we do not see.
• Friday night I spent 5 hours with our pastors class for this year - 3 12 year old boys. Plus I had Frank who is my partner in teaching them about faith and what church membership means. We watched the end of the movie "Jesus," talked about what a faith decision means, taught them about communion, baptism, the holy spirit. We showed them the mechanics of baptism and made sure that we had robes for each of them for the 19th when they were baptized. We also played games and had pizza in between. Two of our elders came by to share their faith. The whole evening was really wonderful - and one of the boys came home and described it to his mother as a combination of a "lock in" and Camp Christian. I would call that success!
• Saturday I helped the worship team decorate the sanctuary. Unfortunately the florist was 2 hours late in delivering the Easter flower and when they came half of them were closed (the tulips and the daffodils) They assured us that all we needed to do was put them in a black plastic bag with a piece of fruit. We did that. The next day - it didn't work - Oh well. The church still looked lovely.
• Saturday afternoon I did Angela's wedding which was a real delight. Angela is a friend of Kacey's and part of my youth group when I served as associate minister in Zanesville in the 80's. Now she is a beautiful and accomplished young woman. It was just wonderful to get to do the wedding and to get the front row seat that I always get in watching the couple do their vows. It is a holy time.
• That afternoon a homeless man stopped by to talk to me - which was kind of startling. The church was open because of the wedding and he came in and as he said, "poured out his heart to me." We finally got to the fact that he wanted me to pray for him and help him with cell phone minutes - which translated to $30. We have a policy of not giving out money on the spot - which I told him. I did pray for him but he did not want me to touch him (hmmmm) I did give him some food to take with him. This kind of thing is always uncomfortable because you never know the mental state of folks or whether rejection may lead to violence. But I did what I felt I should do and this time it was okay.
• Sunday was Easter. It started with me finishing the sermon, making a casserole of cheesy potatoes and dying my hair! Reagan woke up first (after me) and asked if the Easter bunny had come and I told her I didn't think so. Am I clueless? yes. Anyway, shortly after that Marnie and Addie were up - and YES - the Easter bunny did come. That was the first of 3 Easter egg hunts for the girls that day!
• At church we had a breakfast, an Easter egg hunt and then worship. The church was packed which is always wonderful and sort of intimidating. But it was a good service and I think my sermon theme worked. I spoke about "stones" - the stumbling stone, the stone that was rejected, the tomb stone and finally that we become "living stones" after our own Easter experiences. And everyone at the end receive a "living Stone" Now, I did not shre the coolest thing to me - that my name - my middle name is "Livingstone" - Livig Stone - get it? I think it is cool anyway.
  
• It is always good to have a full church - especially happy to see Brett's sister and brother in law and Neil from BG. Every person matters, though.
• Sunday afternoon we had a family party at Brett's sister;s home. It was perfect - perfect place, food, people, weather. They have a large yard and I got to sit outside and just look at the fire.
  
• Finally the Gospel praise service at 5 PM - again a wonderful service. We had the Acts of Faith signing to "I Know my Redeemer Lives" and a poet do 3 poems. Great!

I was exhousted by Sunday night - but happy about it all. And extremely glad that today is a day off!