Easter Weekend!

See what a morning, gloriously bright,
With the dawning of hope in Jerusalem;
Folded the grave-clothes,
Tomb filled with light,
As the angels announce Christ is risen!
See God's salvation plan, wrought in love, Borne in pain, paid in sacrifice,
Fulfilled in Christ, the Man, for He lives:
Christ is risen from the dead!

See Mary weeping, 'Where is He laid?'
As in sorrow she turns from the empty tomb;
Hears a voice speaking, calling her name;
It's the Master, the Lord raised to life again!
The voice that spans the years,
Speaking life, stirring hope,
Bringing peace to us,
Will sound till He appears,
For He lives, Christ is risen from the dead!

One with the Father, Ancient of Days,
Through the Spirit
Who clothes faith with certainty,
Honour and blessing, glory and praise
To the King crowned
With power and authority!
And we are raised with Him,
Death is dead, love has won,
Christ has conquered;
And we shall reign with Him,
For He lives, Christ is risen from the dead!

~lyrics by Stuart Townend

Our tradesmen worked like crazy on Thursday to have a least a couple of rooms ready for us to move into on the weekend.

Here in Canada, Friday this past Friday was a holiday. It is called Good Friday and a good Friday it was. We began the day with a very meaningful church service. It was simple, beautiful, and done in such a way that young and old would not forget that Jesus came down to earth to die a cruel death on the cross to save us from our sins. Even little E, who is not quite three years old, who was sitting in the pew behind us said, "whoa!"

So it wasn't until after church and a post Tim Horton's trip (an unspoken Good Friday tradition) that we began to clean, and organize, and move stuff around. We have moved our bed and few other pieces of furniture into our new bedroom. It feels like an oasis! It's so clean, and roomy, and bright.

I scrubbed all the windows and the floor in our great room and then we moved in the furniture. The baseboards in there all need their final coat, but the furniture is arranged in such a way that the only thing the painters will have to move is our fig tree. (A little aside here. Our fig tree is doing remarkably well considering the poor thing has been moved from room to room, covered in drywall dust, and then unceremoniously dumped outside to receive a bath in icy cold water from the hose. Poor thing!)

Our new appliances arrived on Thursday and are sitting on plywood in the middle of our dining room. The kitchen was originally supposed to go in last week, but it got postponed after the deadline for us to change our appliance delivery day. Our new fridge looks like a monster next to our current one. The standing joke is that when I do groceries I will still get all frustrated that the fridge is not big enough. Let's hope not.

Saturday was spent cleaning, organizing, and generally moving things around. Groceries were done for the first time in weeks, lights were bought for a couple of rooms we had forgotten had needed lights, and somewhere in there I attempted to conquer Mt. Laundry. It was a perfect day for line drying clothes!

On Sunday, we were at church for 7:30 am. The Engineer and three of the children are on the praise team, therefore we were asked to help prepare the Easter breakfast. Muffins, loaves, yogurt, fresh fruit, coffee, tea, and juice.  It was another beautiful and meaningful service. Our service finished with a liturgical dance to this song (not this exact version, but very close). I love the words (they're at the top of this post)!




We had lunch at my parents and a good chat with family and came home to pick rocks off of our lawn. The construction lane had left piles of rocks all over the lawn after the first big snowstorm in December. Once all the rocks were picked, the kids enjoyed their ice cream treats and everyone scattered to do their own thing. I crawled into bed in our new room. It was so peaceful!





So it was a busy weekend and flew by rapidly, but it was also a meaningful weekend. A weekend filled with blessings and thanksgiving.

• God's gift of salvation
• Jesus' sacrifice for us
• Joy in His resurrection
• Reverent worship
• Meaningful worship
• Communion of the saints
• Grace
• Easter breakfast shared
• Laughter shared picking rocks
• Light bulb moments
• New photos of wee ones to enjoy
• A warm day filled with sunshine
• Rain to make things grow
• Fellowship over coffee
• Sweet friendships
• Moving into our new bedroom
• Moving furniture into our great room
• New floors
• Precious window light
• Organizing
• Washing windows
• Clean floors
• New life
• Abundant life
• The beauty of child-like wonder

And so the list continues to grow with God's abundant gifts to us #'s 1138 - 1162. Join us?

Be blessed this week.