After a full Easter weekend, this question may seem crazy, and will require an answer. The short story, Good Friday-oral surgery for four year old daughter, Saturday-Easter carnival including egg hunt, and Sunday-early morning sunrise service. Trying to combine the three activities in one weekend priceless and not recommended, but rewarding as all three were needed. Another questions may also need an answer, Is being busy a good way to celebrate holidays?
Now for anyone that has a few more minutes read the Long version.
Good Friday.
It was recommended over a year ago that we have some dental work done for our four year old daughter, Danielle, and we finally made arraignments for her to have her teeth fixed and planned to have it done later this month, but there was an opening on Good Friday-I think I know why now, but It sounded great. The sooner the work was done the better. So we went and had the surgery done. Now her teeth have been filled and capped and she has a great smile. Most importantly, her teeth no longer hurt. A small note of God’s wonderful provision in the face of behemoth insurance companies. The insurance would only pay for a certain type of cap and the more expensive yet better suited one would have cost considerably more. I wanted to have the better of the two, but the cost made the option prohibitive-I decided and told the nurse to just have the ones that were covered by insurance put in. Yet I offered a quiet pray to God, and trusted in God to have the dental work be completed to help my daughter. An hour later the dentist came and told us about the surgery and the work he did-When doing the surgery he decided to put in the more expensive ones that were better suited for our daughter and was not going to charge us the difference. God is Amazing and He is in the details. He is in the small things. This small thing made it a good Friday for us.
Saturday.
A three hour Easter carnival and egg hunt for the kids was great fun for them. It was a wonderful community event for us to attend as a family-very tiring for parents, though. One of the local Christian churches-An Assembly of God church-hosted the event and invited the extreme team to come and share the gospel in a powerful way. My wife has some pictures on her web log, Pieceful Creations. In true form those pictures speak a thousands words. So I will let them tell the story. The extreme team used amazing feats of strength to point the crowd to Jesus. I was glad to hear them use the word, “Jesus” more than most Sunday sermons-no offense to our interim pastor. The experience left both the inner glow of Christ in my heart, but also the outward evidence of the other sun-a sun burn.
Sunday.
I awoke around 4:00 AM to the sound of a heavy rain and was worried about the sunrise service that our community was going to have in four hours. In Logan, Utah, a group of Christian congregations host an outdoor, early morning sunrise Easter service. The key words are open air pavilion carved out of the side of a mountain and early as in before the sun peaks over the mountains early. Just to make sure that the rain was real and not part of some unusual dream, I got up and looked out the window-It was raining. I offered a quick prayer and hope that the rain would stop and the sky would clear for the morning service. Next time, I will try to remember the words “warming sunshine” instead of clear sky. A clear sky can still be a cold one…Anyway, the rain continued and I snuggled back into bed. I awoke again around 6:00 AM and it was still raining, I got out of bed and went to the living room window to confirm that it was indeed still raining-It was. I was determined that I was going to go no matter the weather, but I was not going to take my kids or pregnant wife out to catch a cold. So I prayed again. This time more fervently, like when singing one of the up tempo praise songs, the ones were you want to clap your hands and tap your foot. I waited* and the rain slowed and then came to a stop. To confirm that the rain had indeed stopped, I grabbed the kitchen garbage that needed to be taken out anyway and went out to see. I walked to the dumpster tossed the trash in and went back inside. No rain. For me, trust and faith in God require a visual inspection for belief to actually start to cement inside my mind. This was great!
Well great, is relative. Now I had to wake family for a 8:00 AM service. On a normal Sunday we leave the house around 9:15 to arrive at church. There must be something very important about that last hour of sleep. It was not an easy task to get everyone up nor was it easy to explain to three sleepy children, including a four year old, that we would have breakfast after we went to the mountain church, but before we went to regular church. Next time, I will not even make any attempts. I love my wife, but she is not a morning person-She would be the first to admit it. Yet, we all managed to get up and out the door** and with blankets wrapped in plastic bags we arrived on time to a clearing-but cold sky and had a great time of worship and celebration of the Resurrection of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ as the sun broke through the cloudy skies. We later went to a breakfast hosted by our congregation and attended our regular Easter sermon.
As tiring and as difficult as it all was-I probably would not have traded any of those experiences in for the easy way. Now that you have the explanation of the first question, what about being busy. Being busy is an attitude more than the number of actions. Being busy is not a great way to celebrate any holidays or holy days. But, Enjoying friendship and activities is a great way to celebrate every holiday and holy day and I highly recommended it.
* The words “I waited and the rain slowed…” means about 35-40 minutes before anything changed.
**The words “we all managed to get up and out the door…” is a friendly way to explain the frantic hassle of going to any type of family church related activity. Anyone that has a child understands this phrase.
