POST EASTER

What a glorious Easter we enjoyed - after, after all the mid-week Lenten services; preaching 7 times
in 5 weeks, and Maundy Thurs and Good Friday and after all the preparation and Sundays in Lent -
a gloriously joyful Easter! The sun shone brightly and we were at 70 F. It couldn't have been a
better day to celebrate the resurrection of our Lord and Savior.
  I did manage a nap on Easter afternoon.
  But what has been most surprising is how tired I have been this week - especially Monday and Tuesday. Even today I am dragging and am ready for a snooze. Sigh. I suppose all the busyness of
all these past weeks has come to a hilt.
   But now, I am consumed with getting the next Sundays together, my niece's non-traditional shower gift items together and her diploma cookies.
   The shower is next weekend - yay! I'm ready for a mini-vacation, but I know how busy it all will be that it won't be a bit restful. Plus the 7 hour drive to Chicago and back. I still have the gift bags to put together, and gathering up the shower gifts into a bit tote bag and pulling out my suitcase. I don't even know what I will be wearing.
   There will be a meeting Monday night of our Lutheran cluster churches. It is further away this
month and I will just plan to leave by 8:45 pm and hope to be home by 10:30 pm. Then I am at the
Methodist church on Tuesday. And Wednesday at the Lutheran church with a Music and Worship meeting that night which I pray will be done by 7pm, so that I will be home by 8 pm, able to last
minute pack and get a good night's rest for the long drive on Thursday.
   I am anticipating a massage from my dear sister, which will go a long way to help come back from the stresses and lack of time since November.
   All around me I see signs of new life - itty bitty leaves on the potentilla bushes, tulips with buds soon to open daffodils still blooming, anenomies & hyacinths blooming, trees starting to bud out and bushes beginning to wear spring green. The garden will soon be calling to be weeded and planted and
a stack of egg shells are waiting to be crushed into garden adding calcium for the tomatoes. I, too, long for new life - more joy, less responsibility(my middle-name), and just stretches of time to
breathe, to think, to relax, to dream, to read, to just be...
   It will come, I pray, in June!
   I still have to plan for the wedding ceremony in May and get the sermon and service together.
  I celebrate that my niece got her first match for her residency, that she laid aside her own want
and desire to have a different first choice and consider the need of her intended - she is growing up
and maturing. I celebrate that she defended her dissertation and passed and can now look to her two graduations - MD & PhD, and her new life together with her soon-to-be-husband.
    But for now, a deep breath, and just a wee space to recover and refresh, before the next round
of craziness!
   I am thankful for a most glorious Easter and that all went so well. Thanks be to God - for new life,
for forgiveness, for the hope in which we live and breathe, for a love so deep, so great.