The Gift of Easter

It's always interesting and helpful to hear other perspectives on the power of Easter in our lives. Thought you might enjoy this one.

Do you ever wish you could have a do-over?

I know I do!  When I mishandle a situation with my kids, I wish I could go back, start over, and respond rather than react.

When I say something to my husband with a disrespectful tone in my voice, I want to rewind the tape and start over.

If you've have found yourself longing for a do-over, there's good news.

While there's no physical way to push the rewind button on our life, we have a God who is in the business of fresh starts.  That's what Easter is all about! 

Jesus' death on the cross was all about starting over.  He died for us and then came to life again three days later. His death and resurrection set the pattern for what our life in God is to look like.  When we mess up, God's forgiveness puts the sin to death and begins new life in our heart.  It's the Easter story over and over again in our life.  Easter is really all about do-overs!  

So in real life it looks like this:

• I accept Christ as my Savior.  I thank Him for His death on the cross for me, and I ask Him to be the leader of my life.  
• When I mishandle a situation with my kids, I tell God I'm sorry.  I accept His forgiveness and walk in His grace. Then I apologize to my kids, and I start over.  
• When I speak to my husband disrespectfully, I apologize to God and accept His forgiveness.  Then I apologize to my husband and walk confidently in my do-over.

Here's the best part: the more I apologize and make it right, the more I'm motivated to change.  The full do-over happens when I allow God to transform my heart and I stop doing the same sin over and over again.  

What if this Easter, it was less about the Easter bunny and eggs and more about a new life in Christ?  What if we got serious about the do-over's God offers?  

Taken from Hearts - At- Home site

Glorious Spring

Experiencing God’s Creation, Rain or Shine

by Tracey Bianchi 04-14-2011

I’m a Midwestern girl coming out of her winter shell this month. Flip flops are lost companions just now crawling out from under beds and hidden closet shelves. My heart is light as I see daffodils fighting with the frozen ground and Magnolia buds cracking open. Every time the seasons flip and winter caves into spring I find my soul stunned again by the majesty and simple goodness of being outside.
In Chicago, three long months of the year are spent at temperatures below freezing. Then, come summer we actually have the audacity to lament the chewy, 90-degree air of July. We combat both temperature extremes by flipping on the heat or air conditioning. We race from climate-controlled homes to air conditioned cars, from heated grocery stores to humidity free schools.
If I’m not careful, I’ll spend half my life hiding inside.
So when I discover again the glory of God, as revealed in Psalm 36, I confess that it’s hard to grasp drinking from God’s deep rivers when I drink from a faucet.

But your loyal love, Lord, extends to the skies; your faithfulness reaches the clouds. Your righteousness is like the strongest mountains; your justice is like the deepest sea. Lord, you save both humans and animals. Your faithful love is priceless, God! Humanity finds refuge in the shadow of your wings. They feast on the bounty of your house; you let them drink from your river of pure joy. Within you is the spring of life. In your light, we see light (Psalm 36:5-9).

Righteousness like mountains and justice like the sea? Nope. The elevation of Chicago is 597 feet. Try to climb that. God’s love extending to the skies? Well, I do look up during worship and count the beams in the sanctuary, but I cannot see past the building to get to God’s extensive skies.
Regardless of where you live, the trajectory of American life has most of us trying to eek out a life by shuffling from building to building. We are often separated from the vastness of God’s creation unless we determine otherwise.
Passages like this nudge me to get outside even when the temperature hovers at 10 degrees below zero. We hear God speaking in the sunset, the snowdrift, and in all 597 feet of my Midwestern elevation if we just take the time to look and listen.
God speaks to us every day, all of creation sings the glory of God. God’s mercy and goodness reach to the heavens. This year’s liturgical calendar brings the Lenten journey and Earth Day into a partnership. The Christian holy week (Good Friday) shares the same calendar square as Earth Day.
Perhaps on this day we should fast and pray, worship and dream, cry and yearn for God like Good Friday and Holy Week beg us to do. And then, step outside and do it all again.
Dream and worship; be in the presence of the Almighty; feel the weight of God’s glory pressing down upon us in Creation. Give praise to God who created the very heavens and earth that proclaim the work of God’s hands. And let the sunshine soak our tired, weary souls as we emerge from the darkness of Lent into the splendor of the resurrection.
Step outside. Step outside.
You can find more about Tracey at traceybianchi.com

Good Books

I can't say enough about Seasons by French illustrator/artist BlexBolex. The book is simple in concept yet has strikingly beautiful images of nature, of the world around us, the small blessings we sometimes overlook. Enjoy with your little one today and for years to come. Peace.

Yoga from a Christian Perspective

Join us for yoga at First Congo April 16th from 9am to 10:15am in Plymouth Hall. Cost is $10.00 for the class. Bring a mat or buy on for $10!

Craft Night This Friday!

Come get crafty!!

Please join us Friday, April 15th in the Seim Room from 6 to 10pm. We won't be crafting over the summer so this is your last chance to get those photographs organized, finish knitting that scarf or update the baby book before the next baby arrives. Come collage, write poetry or sew! We are hoping to see many of you Friday evening!

Praise God - Yasmin Levy

Family Fun

Hope to see you all in you bunny ears this Saturday for the LaGrange Park District Easter Egg Hunt at Denning Park at 10am and then the Flying High Easter Egg Open Gym from 12-2pm. Bring your cameras!

LaGrange Park Dist Easter Egg Hunt—FREE!

http://www.pdlg.org/calendar/sys-cal-details.asp?id=1443

Flying High Gym--$10 per kid

http://flyinghighgym.com/downloads/easterEggHuntOpenGymFlyer2011.pdf

Easter bunny, 8000 eggs, jumpy house, face painting

thanks for the info Terri!!

image from etsy.com

Have You Been?

Tates Old Fashioned Ice Cream
25 S. Ashland Ave., La Grange, IL 352-4848
Craft Classes- includes craft and kiddie scoop
Everyday 1:00pm and 3:30pm - $5.00

God Infusions - Creativity as a Path

One way to feel connected to God is to experiment with your gifts. We all have gifts but perhaps have never taken the risk to reveal them or we did reveal them at one time and are afraid to do so again. The suggestions below are for YOU. They are for your spirit. They are enacted prayer. Parts of you are set free to revel in God's wonder-filled world. Enjoy! Peace.

visit an art museum or exhibit
dance in your living room
paint ceramics
read The Artist Way by Julia Cameron
paint a wall
make a collage with old magazines
photograph your surroundings, even the things you cook!
try a new hairstyle
learn about an artist like Matisse, Georgia O'Keefe, Alexander Calder
watch a black and white classic movie (On the Waterfront - or anything with Merna Loy, Cary Grant, Katherine Hepburn)
buy and arrange flowers
collect leaves
color in a coloring book
go to the symphony
make your own jewelry (Circle of Stones, LaGrange IL)
visit an art studio (Riverside Art Center)
get your hands dirty- garden even if you don't have a green thumb
turn off the tv for a week
bird watch
learn to sew a simple bag
start a blog (http://www.blogger.com/)
notice the buds opening on all of the trees and bushes
write a letter - on paper to a friend or relative
some ideas from michelecushatt.com

The Reverend Rocks...she really does!

Reverend Katherine Willis Pershey:
DJ spot on WLTL 88.1 on Monday, April 11th from 7-8pm.  The show is called The Reverend Rocks!

The Sacred in the Minivan

Check out this short video. Some good ideas for bringing calm and the sacred into our very rushed lives.
Peace,

http://bcove.me/fw0tyerf

Pearls of Parenting Wisdom

 

Personal Development In Parenting–Part Four: Concrete Ideas

March 20, 2011 by Carrie

In order to handle the rigors of family life, I have posited in the last few posts that we must think about biography, balance of the physical body and the inner bodies, faith and faithfulness (our beliefs, and how faithful are we in ACTION to our beliefs).  In addition to the things I already mentioned in the first three parts of this series, I want to name some concrete actions you could take to start your own inner work so you can be centered for your best parenting:

• Create a space in your day for meditation and prayer.  It may be that you do this whilst you nurse a baby or in the shower.  As a parent, you may not really get even fifteen minutes to yourself to sit quietly, so you have to be open to cultivating a new kind of practice that entails quieting your mind whilst moving or doing something else.  This is just a season; children do grow!
• Watch your computer habit.  Most mothers I speak with use their computers as an escape tool at times.  Force yourself to be present even if you don’t want to.  If you are trying to escape because you are tired, bored, resentful, work on trying to fix the root cause of those feelings with action, not escape. 
• Practice cultivating silence in the home when you can.  Less words, more warm smiles and hugs, soft humming, silence and reverence together.
• If it speaks to you, you could start using Rudolf Steiner’s six basic meditative exercises.  These meditative exercises can be used in conjunction with other religious or spiritual practices.  I suggest starting with one at a time, going through all of them, and then eventually working in combination of exercises.
• Work in the arts:  music, painting, sculpting, crafts, reading all build up your reserves of energy. 
• Have an area of your own personality, will that you are working and striving to cultivate.
• Spend time in nature.
• Have rhythm in your life.  Keep striving for this if it is a difficult area for you.  Write down what you want to do in the area of rhythm, and do it for forty days.  If you “fall off the wagon”, get back on.
• Keep in mind that each minute is a new start.  Keep striving and going.
• Balance your year by season – there are some seasons where we are move active in outside the home activities and some seasons where we might be home more.  Look at your year.
• Look at your monthly rhythm – many women feel tired around the time of their menstrual cycles, and it may be worth it to plan this into your monthly rhythm as much as you can to honor that time.  This is a beautiful time, not a time to be medicated and rushed through.
• Where are your “no’s” in life?  What are your boundaries for you personally?  No’s help maintain balance, no’s help us find the time to be home and centered for our own inner work and parenting in an unhurried manner.
• Wake up before your children.  If you are rubbing your eyes and the children are already fighting, making a mess, helping themselves to what is in the kitchen, then the morning is not off to the best start.
• Keep a day of rest, a Sabbath.  This is important during the weekly rhythm.  You yourself must hold how to do this. 
• I think it is important to work toward being objective in parenting. Many times if we can just pull back and look at things without so much emotion, we find the right answers for our children.   If we can let go of guilt, which does NOTHING to move any situation forward, we can reach more joy in our homes. 

from the site: The Parenting Passageway