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God – I love Easter like millions of Your children around the world. It rekindles in me so many warm and wonderful memories of my childhood.
On Easter mornings getting up early with my sister and brothers and rummaging around our home to find the eggs the Easter Bunny had left for us. Eating far too many jelly beans. Holding the little chicks and cuddly rabbits our parents gave us. Going to our church to worship with my family. I and my siblings wearing Easter white clothes our mother had made for us with her Singer sewing machine. After church, posing for family pictures. The tradition of sitting around the table, holding hands, saying grace and eating Mom’s tasty meals. The beautiful clothed table adorned with napkins, china, crystal, and silver. Attending the Emmottville family Easter Egg Hunt with my grandparents, 18 aunts and uncles and 45 first cousins.
God, however, all of this joy is set against what is most important to me and for all Christians around the globe. The death and resurrection of Your Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ.
How inconceivable it must have been on that dark day in Calvary for His mother, Mary, and all who witnessed His crucifixion to foresee that Your Son’s death was truly the beginning of His eternal life with You.
As human beings, don’t we think that life is linear? We are born. We live. We suffer. We get old and die. But, in You, I have learned that my spiritual life began in a death of sorts. That I, as all Your children, have crosses in life and love to bear just as I have borne the heavy cross of polio and paralysis.
Because of this blessed Easter day and the sacrifice of Your precious Son, Jesus Christ, the end of our Earthly lives is just the beginning of our Eternal life with You.
Likewise, we experience a kind of death in bearing our own crosses as with the Coronavirus Pandemic at this time—the end of normalcy, the relationships and personal health we have taken for granted, the ability to be with and care for those who need us. The end of a good night’s sleep. Being at peace and feeling secure. But, as a sort of Holy miracle aligned with Your Easter message to Your children, such trials and endings are all transformed into new beginnings. To be closer to You.
God, on this Easter day I thank You for Your grace and for Your sacrifice.
When I suffered polio and was paralyzed at age 6, I am certain my parents, just as Mary at the foot of her son’s Cross, felt that all their previous plans for my life had ended, had died. But in the light and love of Easter and in the glorious sunrise of hope You represent to the world, I have learned that my life and the living of it with You and in You did not end. Rather, it is when my life truly began. Amen
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Jack H. Emmott is a Senior Counsel of Gray, Reed & McGraw, LLP, a 120-lawyer full service firm in Houston, Texas, a Board-Certified Family Law and Master Credentialed Collaborative Law Professional Divorce Attorney, Mediator, Author, Entrepreneur and Inspirational Speaker. For more information about Jack or his latest book, Bending Angels: Living Messengers of God’s Love, go to the Bending Angel website.
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