Easter Weekend

We had a full, happy Easter weekend!  The Passion performances went very well, and Todd ended up taking Grace to see the last show on Saturday night.  We talked about it an length before deciding to allow her to see it.  There are many extremely graphic scenes including the beating and crucifixion of Jesus.  The professional make-up artists and body doubles did an amazing job of making everything look very real, and I even had a difficult time watching at times.

We are careful to protect her from watching acts of violence on TV or movies.  After all, she is only four years old, and there is just nothing redeeming in her seeing those types of things.  However, the depiction of Jesus’s suffering is not meaningless violence.  It is horrible, it is graphic, it is unimaginable, and it is meaningful.  We want her to understand how much Jesus suffered for us, so we ultimately decided to let her watch these scenes. 

We have talked about the death and resurrection of Jesus on a regular basis since she was born, but we found out this morning that it has suddenly become much more real to her.  We were eating a fellowship breakfast at church and talking about the food when, out of the blue, Grace started shaking her head and saying, “That’s so sad, that’s so sad…”  I asked her what was sad and she replied, “They were mean to Jesus.  They hurt Jesus.  That’s so sad.”  I said, “Yes, that was very sad when they hurt him and he died on the cross.  But, what happened after he died?”  Grace responded by throwing her hands in the air and exclaiming, “He’s alive!”.  This is the first time that she has ever verbalized, on her own without prompting, the events of Jesus’s death and resurrection.  I am thankful that we decided to take her to the show on Saturday, and I hope that she will continue to talk about and think about the events she saw portrayed.

She was occasionally restless during the performance, and she never did recognize me on stage until the very end when I took off my Jewish headdress for the heaven scene.  Here’s a picture of me and Grace with my friend Monica.  Grace wanted to see the angels up close after the show!

After being at The Passion late last night, we had to get up early and be at church by 7:30 since I was singing in the sunrise service.  Thankfully, Grace was excited to wake up early because she knew we were meeting her good friend Natalie and sitting with her during the service.

She made it through and was sweet and quiet the whole time!  Whew!  It was fun to worship together as a family.  We are considering taking her out of child care a year early and starting big church this summer.  She’s probably ready.

After the service, we found our sweet friend that I babysit during the week.  He was very proud to tell me that he was dressed like a gentleman!

After Sunday School and the second service, we went to Larry and Joy’s house for a delicious lunch and fellowship.  They are so sweet to include us as part of their family during holidays.  They had a full house, and Grace enjoyed chasing their dog and various other members of their family around while we got the food ready. 

The only bad thing today was that I accidentally gave Grace some of the corn pudding I made without thinking about the fact that there was a high concentration of eggs.  She immediately reacted with itching and hives around her mouth, and I had to give her a big dose of the Benedryl that I always keep in my purse.  It made her kind of loopy, and I couldn’t keep her awake after we left their house.  She’s been sleeping since 5:00, and it’s now almost 9:00 p.m.  I’ll probably wake her up in a minute, feed her, then put her back to bed.  She’s had a busy week, too, and needs to catch up on her sleep!

The only other brief moment of sadness today was being away from my dad on his birthday.  Happy Birthday Dad!  My whole life, I have been so blessed to be his daughter.  I know how unusual and wonderful it is to be born to a father who is wise, loving, firm, gracious, and kind.  I hope that we have many more years to celebrate together.  I love you, dad!

I hope that everyone had a wonderful Easter weekend with your family.  He is risen!  He is risen indeed!