March 20, 2008 at 12:21 AM EDT
Well, Easter is upon us and around the corner SPRING! I am so very excited to welcome the warmer weather. The damp/cold has made it very hard for me. But that is yesterday, and tomorrow is looking better already.
I continue to make forward progress. I am working about three days a week now and I do enjoy being with my friends and coworkers. Although I passed my driving test and drive around town and locally, I have not been able to drive to work, my husband Dave has been taking me in in the mornings. it is just too long a walk right now between the parking lot and the building. Although I did pretty good in the beginning, I am finding Ineed to use my walker as I am attempting to adjust my meds and I feel somewhat wobbly. I fell three times at work and a couple times at home and decided it wasn't worth hurting another part of my body in the hopes of getting independent faster. I continue to swim and go to pilates, and have just completed a round of accupuncture for now. I am grate-full this Easter season to be alive and surrounded by family and friends that love and support me.
I continue to look forward ...
I don't like cold Easters. I like pink Easter hats, lace gloves, frilly dresses, boys in suits and "Sunday-go-to-meetin" clothes. I have great fond memories of Easter in the Moore household. Being one of six kids, the only girl that got new clothes was my sister Mary Jo. The rest of the girls got her hand-me-downs. They were usually pretty good hand-me-downs too, since Mary Jo was the cheerleader-primpy type, who took good care of her clothes and loved her "stuff".
Unfortunately, for my sister Susie, I got the hand-me-downs before she did. By the time I passed them down, well, she was hoping one of the cousins had sent a box over, because my tomboy personality had no time for taking care of any frilly type "stuff" then. I didn't like pink then like I do now. I can remember the look on my Mother's face when I arrived home from mass with my Easter dress all dirty from climbing the tree outside the church. And my shoes, where EXACTLY were my shoes ! Oh, well, those were the days!
Now, all these years later it is not what I am wearing that matters to me, but what I am, or who I am, I guess. I am far from frilly now. In fact I am way too practical for frilly, and I can't even remember most of the time where my gloves are.
This Easter I will be more aware than ever that it is not how we present ourselves to our God, but who we present. It is not what we have on, but who we have on. That face in the mirror, is that the face of a person changed at all? Have I taken advantage of the day, the new opportunity given to me to be different than yesterday?
How has your Lent been? Busy? The "usual" busyiness? How's your prayer life? Any deeper now than it was these past forty days? Who have you lifted up in prayer? If you can imagine your Easters thirty years down the road, is it your family's experience of praying together that they will recall, or your best Easter dress? Is your family in the pew with you important, more important than where you'll have Easter brunch? Have you shared scripture this Lenten journey with your kids? Do your kids understand that they are gifts from God, and that you know that there is nothing else you need?
This Easter my family is giving thanks for good news for my young great-niece Mia. After almost a year of treatments for her cancer, she has been told she is "in the clear", another miracle in our family. We are laughing and rejoicing and watching her hair grow back. We are thank-full for all the prayers lifted up in Mia's name. We are indeed blessed!
Easter
gives us time to pause, doesn't it, gives us time to enjoy the colors of spring
in the baskets, and if we let it, gives us time to pay attention, PAY ATTENTION
to all the colors of our life with new vision. Blessed Easter!
Your Deacon,
Colleen