Easter Prep...{or lack thereof....}

I was on the phone with a friend yesterday - me always moving, never stopping - sweeping, folding, washing - always fighting to push back on the chaos of our life, always racing the clock to get one more task accomplished, when I am stopped dead in my tracks...

She is talking - catching me up on her life, sharing with the heart of a fellow Mama when she says..."...because I've always said that I want Easter to be just as big as Christmas in our family. I want it to be just as awesome. After all, you can't have one without the other."

And I am slain.

Because it's true.
And Easter is Sunday, and I have hardly given it a thought.

And this year, above all others previous, I have done the absolute worst job in preparing my childrens' hearts - let alone my own, for this day. Nine times out of ten I have completely neglected their jelly bean jars. We have not read one single Easter story. I haven't even brought out the Resurrection Eggs for the kids to look at and touch. And even the Easter set that my mom bought for the boys as a visual reminder of what this season is all about has been tucked away because the angel {read: hooligans} has broken his wings.

But I have made sure that schooling has gotten accomplished for the week. And an entire book got read. And I have stayed on top of Facebook and have even had time to write a couple of blogposts. It's all in what we choose to make time for, right? What we value as important? Those are the things that I always seem to be able to rearrange my schedule for.

And I am reminded again of what increasingly seems to have become my life verse: "We are merely moving shadows, and all our busy rushing ends in nothing." ~ Psalm 39:6

Nothing.
Because hurry makes us hurt, and it almost always empties the soul.
And how can we ever really and fully enter into the present of "now" when we are always rushing to accomplish whatever is next on the list?

Elizabeth Elliot once said: "Wherever you are, be all there."

And "here" is where HE is.
And here is the only place where I can love Him - right now.
And here is where things are done that will mean something in Eternity.
And what have I done today, with all of this gift of time, that will be valued in the Hereafter?

Surely not the sweeping and the folding and the washing.
This I know to be true.

So today, I fought my natural impulses to do, and conquer, and accomplish.
And today we redeemed time.
We entered fully, and we fully slowed.
Life is not an emergency - it is something sacred. A gift to fully BE.

And my boys are not tasks, and this home is just dust.
And these days they are fleeting, and I need eyes to see.
Heaven's eyes.
Jesus eyes.

"All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us." ~ J.R.R. Tolkien.

* * * * *
2711. Gentle reminders.
2712. Unknowing rebukes.
2713. Three pairs of eyes watching. Learning. Modeling.
2714. A break from the normal.
2715. Easter stories and movies.
2716. Sweet conversation.
2717. Understanding hearts.
2718. Resurrection roll misshaps.
2719. Jesse's: "Yes! Thanks for staying, Jesus!"
2720. Tea on fine china.
2721. Eternal perspective.
2722. Letting go a bit more.
2723. Lessons learning. And learning. And re-learning.
2724. Patient sons.
2725. Patient Father.