Christ is Risen! Alleluia!

Happy Easter, everyone.

Today we're going to be doing the family shuffle between my mom's and his aunt's. I don't know how long we'll do both families on holidays, because it really is exhausting to fit it all into one day, but since he's living with Kim now, it's manageable. Also, I don't know how we'll choose. We both have said that it's important to divide our time equally between the two families on holidays. It isn't fair to each other or to our families to just go to one side's house for everything. While I love Matt's family and he loves mine, we both want to see our families also, they want to see us, and I don't want him to feel like he's missing out on spending time with his siblings any more than I want to miss out on spending time with mine. So for now it's the shuffle. It's a pain, but it's worth the occasional difficulty for one day.

I was remembering last Easter season, and how I was just overwhelmed with joy because CHRIST IS RISEN. I know what you're thinking, but this was before Matt, so it wasn't the first flush of loving and being loved back. I know it was truly a fruit (gift?) of the Holy Spirit, the joy which just filled me and overflowed from me last year. I can remember sitting on my bed at night, saying prayers before I went to bed, and the sudden thought "HE IS RISEN" would flash like a thunderbolt through my mind. Then the excitement and wonder and joy would overwhelm me. Cross-legged I would bounce on the bed like a child and supress the giggles which just seemed to be bubbling up through me, because how would I explain to Allison why I was laughing if she heard?

This year is different. This year, I think, I am too distracted by the wedding plans to hear the voice proclaiming he is risen. And knowing that alone is enough for me to know that I need to stop and reset myself. Or rather, I need to let the Spirit reset me, to make sure that there is the space and time and stillness to here that joyful proclamation. There is great joy in preparing for marriage, in the sympathetic play, in the partnering, and in looking toward hopeful goals for our future together, but even that is nothing compared to the joy of knowing the Lord is risen, and that He has plans for me. "For I know well the plans I have in mind for you, says the LORD, plans for your welfare, not for woe! plans to give you a future full of hope."

I do not ever want any relationship in my life to come between me and the Lord, and I know myself well enought to know that I can easily allow that to happen. If I cannot hear that voice, it is not because he has stopped proclaiming, but because I am not listening. So I need to reset, to reach out to God and spend time with Him. I want to live in that moment again, in the sudden realization that everything He said He would do has already been done. He has won every victory, overcome every snare of the enemy, and rescued us from all danger. I want to live in the gratitude and confidence that that knowledge brings. Most of all, I want to be able to hear that voice within me, feel the vibration of that voice against every fiber in me and have the joy that the spirit brings.