Today I reflect on Easter. Growing up, Easter was definitely a holiday but I was reminded by so many yesterday that it wasn’t filled with traditions like most everyone has around me. My Easter holiday was disrupted this year by a rather sick 8-year old girl. It has been a good while since we have had need for wet washcloths, thermometers at the ready, and carefully tucked in blankets. I wasn’t expecting it at all, and it changed a few plans, but in all reality, it only changed what would be a typical Sunday.

When I was a girl, I didn’t really notice that much. I knew a lot of families purchased new outfits for Easter and the attendance at church was a a little more crowded. But, for my family, it meant the same church clothes and pot roast waiting at home and Sunday evening services following an afternoon filled with naps and weekend cleaning. As I got older, I think I held our traditions of having no big celebration in higher esteem. I felt it set us apart that we could treat the most significant religious day as any other Sunday. That we had our heads on straight. And although I face the holiday with more humility than I used to, I still to this day see it as a normal Sunday along with the rest. It was afterall the very thing as a Christian we should be celebrating every day of the week, for it was our ultimate salvation and purpose for living.

This year, I have had a few realizations though. I realized Easter Sunday is a time to recalibrate, to assess whether we are changing and growing or if we are still treating every single day as the next. Both sermons I listened to had one common theme, “Change.” What happened on Resurrection Sunday changed absolutely everything from that moment forward. It changed the life we have before death and it changed the life we have after death and into eternity. It means new life in both spectrums, but it also means adjusting to a new way of communicating to God.

Mary Magdalene wept when she saw Jesus’ body absent from the tomb and she recognized by the calling of her name by Jesus that her “Teacher” had risen. The excitement was quickly quelled, though, as Jesus urged her “Do not cling to me, for I have yet to ascend to my Father in Heaven.” Basically, Jesus was saying “I know I am back, but that doesn’t mean we can go back to the way things were. Don’t cling to the past ways of being close to me. Look for the new way.”

So that is my hope, on a personal level, that I would not hear new lessons and face new trials and quickly revert back to the place that was comfortable. As I completed my local church home membership survey (I consider myself a member to two churches now, local and beachfront), I shared one deep and earnest prayer for my life. I plan to live my life in full expectation of this prayer being answered to the fullest this year. I won’t share what my prayer was, but I will say that it very much embodies the lessons about change this Easter Sunday has brought me.

Disclaimer: My Christian faith is very personal to me, and will from time to time surface in my blog posts like this one. It is not the primary subject of my blog, but definitely a part of me. If you believe differently than I do, that is perfect fine and you can take what parts of these posts you need. If you have questions about my faith or what is written here, please feel free to comment!