Easter Sunrises

"On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb.  They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.  While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them.  In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead?  He is not here; he has risen!" 

~Luke 24:1-6

I have been very blessed to have had the opportunity to spend most of my Easters at the beach...and most Easter mornings attending a sunrise service.  As a child and teenager, I remember throwing the covers back over my head and going back to sleep when Mama would call for me to get up and get ready...5:30, really?  So early!!  Funny, now that I'm 25, I still groaned a little bit at the thought of how early it was...and how cold the wind would be out on the beach. "What if Jesus would've thought it was too early, or He was too tired, or it was too cold?" Of course, leave it to Mama to make a comment like that...and the more I thought about it, I was glad she did.  It got me to thinking...

what if He had felt that way.  

Matthew 26:36-46 gives us a glimpse into the heart of Jesus at the garden the night before His death...

        "Then Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to them, “Sit here while I go over there and pray.”  He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him, and he began to be sorrowful and troubled.  Then he said to them, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.”  Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.”  Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping.  “Couldn’t you men keep watch with me for one hour?” he asked Peter.  “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”  He went away a second time and prayed, “My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done.”  When he came back, he again found them sleeping, because their eyes were heavy.  So he left them and went away once more and prayed the third time, saying the same thing.  Then he returned to the disciples and said to them, “Are you still sleeping and resting? Look, the hour has come, and the Son of Man is delivered into the hands of sinners.  Rise! Let us go! Here comes my betrayer!”

....He stayed awake all night...IN PRAYER.  Weeping and pleading with His Father.  And can you imagine how this may have felt for God?  To hear His beloved Son cry out for another way... "but not as I will but as you will."  When I think about this scene in the garden, I see the part of Jesus that was fully man...Our finite minds cannot grasp how someone could be both fully man and fully God, and when I think of Jesus, I lean more towards the fully God part.  But this scene shows me how this affected the mortal man Jesus.  He was "overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death."  

As you read on in Matthew, you read about the horrific events that took place after He spent His night praying... He was arrested, flogged, beaten, accused, spit on, called horrible names, made to carry His own cross, nailed to, and then hung upon that same cross.  And with each step he took, each hateful word spoken, He knew that what He was doing was for them,  for me, for us...  What strength!  The world saw weakness in this Man, but the strength it must have taken to not call down 10,000 angels.  As the sky grew dark over the next 3 hours, and as the earth quaked, and the veil was torn, and the tombs released the bodies of the saints, Jesus breathed His last...  And I think about His precious little Mama, watching all of this, brokenhearted  and in anguish, just wishing she could take His place....

As I walked out on the beach in the dark, all of those verses and scenes played through in my head and my heart.  What He did for me...and it was hard for me to wake up early?  Really?  I felt so guilty and so sorry, but I was so thankful to attend that service Sunday morning.  Because as the sun rose, and the glory of God stretched out across the sea....all I could think about were those angels saying "He is not here, He has risen!"

He is so gracious to have given His life for me...and for you.  I am so thankful for His sacrifice but even more so for that glorious resurrection!  That awesome Easter Sunday some 2000 years ago brought hope...and eternal and everlasting joy to cling to....makes me think of that verse in Psalm, "Weeping may endure for the night but joy comes in the morning."  Or in the KJV... "joy cometh."  What a blessed promise to cling to....

I don't know that I will ever see a sunrise the same...that promise that joy cometh.  Not just in the morning, but in the end, when it is finished, joy cometh, eternally.  Glory!  What a day that will be!

Thanks for allowing me to share my heart.  I did not intend on teaching a bible study or anything, I just wanted to show you some of the glorious pictures from the sunrise on Easter morning.  But I guess the good Lord had other plans...maybe you needed to hear those words today.

 Joy Cometh!

Happy 2012

Happy New Year! Hopefully the newness hasn't worn off quite yet. The end of 2011 proved challenging... experiencing heart-wrenching loss, empty seats around the holiday table, and a heavy heart for so many trying to find their way amidst sorrow, emptiness, loneliness and pain. 2011 taught me, is teaching me, the importance of our time... what we do with it, the understanding that no one knows how much they have, and the dire need to tell a world about the hope that is found only in Jesus Christ.

I spent a lot of last year focused on time anyways, because it just seemed to be flying by so quickly and the harder I hung on, the faster it went. Trying to figure out how to slow it down, how to make the most of it, how to measure it. We like to measure things, don't we? Down south, we're all too familiar with measuring. A few of our favorites (or at least mine)...tea by the gallon, sugar by the pound, butter by the stick, coffee by the cup, fabric by the yard, tomatoes by the bushel, apples by the peck, and on and on and on. We have measuring cups in our kitchen, a tape measure in our garage, scales in our bathroom, a yard stick in our craft room... the ability to measure something tangible, what an awesome concept. But time...how do we measure time?

We have hour glasses, sundials, the clock, calenders, chronometers, and so forth. Is that how we measure our time? Or how about seconds and minutes and hours and days? There are 86, 400 seconds in a day, that's 1,440 minutes, or 24 hours. And there are 365 days in a year... that is 12 months, 8,766 hours, 525, 949 minutes, 31,556,926 seconds. Does that work? Oh, or what about the breaths we take? I was reading in Our State magazine this past week and it had an article that started off with a few facts about breathing. It stated, "We take 15 breaths every minutes, 900 breaths every hour, 21,600 breaths every day." Makes me think of the quote "Is it the amount of breathes we take or the moments that take our breathe away?" Well, is it?

None of these seem to help measure time in an eternal sense. Ecclesiastes 3:11 says, "...He has also set eternity in the hearts of men." When God created us, He purposed us to live forever, and then came Adam and Eve and that serpent in the garden... sin, that thing that robbed us of a direct line of communication to God. That thing that created death and eternal separation from a Holy God. But eternity was still in our hearts... that's why it is so hard to lose someone we love, because we feel in our spirit that we should live forever. And that is what makes Jesus Christ and His sacrifice so glorious. As He hung on that cross, and breathed His last, He conquered death. The veil was torn and that direct line was brought back, He made a way for that yearning of eternity in our hearts to become a real thing, Jesus bought back our time. Oh, and how we praise Him for that!

So, if Jesus sacrificed Himself to give us the hope of eternity, how should that change the way we use our time? It only seems right that we use it to glorify His name because He is the only One worthy. Worthy to live for and worthy to die for.

Just something to think on as we begin a new year. How will you spend your 31,556,926 seconds?

Hope...

I am still somewhat afraid of the dark. Okay, a LOT afraid of the dark. When my husband is gone for the night, I do not sleep. I can hear everything, inside and outside, and the dogs can, too! I leave all the lights on, the TV blaring, and I usually spend the night on the couch.

But here is the funny part... if my husbands just working late, at a late night bible study, taking part in a youth lock-in, or just hanging out with his buddies...for whatever reason, if he is coming home that same night, even if it is 2 in the morning... I can rest peacefully. I have no anxiety about the night or what it may hold. I can go to my room, turn out all the lights, switch off the TV and sleep soundly. Sometimes... most of the time, I don't even hear him come in. I find that completely crazy...and amazing all at the same time.

I think life is, or at least can be, a lot like this. Psalm 4:8 says, "I will lie down and sleep in peace, for you alone, O LORD, make me dwell in safety." See, here's the thing. I can rest, I can find comfort in knowing that The Groom is returning. He promises His bride that He will come back. When the darkness settles in, the shadows start to creep up, when every bump and thud seems to be amplified, I can lie down and sleep in peace. Why you ask. The answer can be found in Psalm 62:5, "Find rest, O my soul, in God alone; my hope comes from him." Because of this, I have hope. I have hope when I face trials, I have hope when the enemy comes against me, not if, when...I have hope in the valleys, I have hope on the mountain tops, I have hope when everything around me crumbles.

My Hope Comes From Him! Glory to God He has given me hope.

Without the hope of Jesus Christ, your life will be dark, restless, and lonely. You will search for rest but it will not come, but... if you are reading this and you are still breathing, there is still hope for you.

A hope that springs eternal! A hope that does not disappoint!

The truth is this...The Groom will return, soon and very soon, and when He does, He will take His bride with Him. John 14:1-3 says, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am."

If you know Him personally, that means He is returning for you, there is hope, you can "lie down and sleep in peace," but if you don't.... don't put it off any longer. Hear His call, respond to the hope that can be found in Him and Him alone. He is waiting for you!