My mom and me: 🙂

From my earliest memory, my mom was my best friend — not in a way that was too chummy and hindered discipline. But we could talk about most anything, and I always knew that she was for me. I was the oldest of six, and we always enjoyed each other’s company.

She was not the most domestic person on the planet. 🙂 I remember days cleaning the house together, snack breaks, and jokes about how no one ever came over when the house was clean.

My father was an alcoholic and very jealous and easily angry. She thought that once they got married and he was assured of her love and commitment that much of that would change. A word of warning: don’t ever marry expecting change. I love my dad, too — I’ve written more about him earlier. I wish they both could have come to know the Lord earlier. But there were rough times over the years, and Mom and I were kind of allies during those times. I think she did the best she could to be the best wife she could be, but with continued problems and without the strength God could give, the marriage ended. I struggled with my relationships with both parents during that time, but the Lord helped — it was actually as a result of all this that I was saved — and eventually my relationship with both was restored, as I mentioned a bit in an earlier post.

I always appreciated that, though my Mom didn’t share my beliefs and convictions for many years, she cared about me and tried not to offend and tried to support me in my new way of life.

She loved to give. Her “love language” was definitely giving. She loved to find things that would be “just right” for her kids. She would collect things all through the year to give at Christmas. She always gave generously yet always wanted to give more. She was also a delight to give to. I enjoyed just as much looking through the year for things to give to her.

She loved to call rather than write, and our conversations were easily an hour or more. She would call for special occasions or just to catch up. Since we always lived 1,000 miles away and were rarely together over holidays, phone calls became an unplanned but welcome tradition. Usually we’d talk in the evening after the rest of the holiday’s festivities were over and everyone had gone home. That’s one of the things I miss most during days like today.

When my husband and I first got married and moved away, we traveled there to visit: it would have been hard and expensive for her and my step-father to travel with five kids. But in later years they did come here, and it was a joy to visit with her on my turf. 🙂 One of the times I enjoyed most was one day when they were visiting and my husband rented a boat to take everyone on the lake. I don’t know when she developed a phobia about the water, but she didn’t want to go, so she and I stayed at the house and I took her out to lunch. That lunch out together with just the two of us is one of my best memories.

She passed away in December of 2005. If I didn’t have faith that God’s timing is perfect, I would have felt it was much too soon for her to go. I don’t know why the Lord chose to take her so soon — I trust He will work all things together for good as He promised. One hope was that some of the rest of the family would be saved as a result, but as far as I know that hasn’t happened yet (if anyone feels led to pray to that end, I would be much obliged. 🙂 )

I imagine Mother’s Day will always carry a bit of a pang for me, but it also carries pleasant memories of my precious Mom.

Hope you had a blessed Easter Day! Ours was very nice.

A few days ago I posted a recipe for Resurrection Rolls, but didn’t have a picture. I thought I’d post a picture of one from today. They didn’t get as “poofy” as usual, and this picture turned out blurrier than I thought when I took it, but you get the idea.

My husband played around with it and took some photos on black fabric. I like the way the light behind it looks like it’s coming from inside.

I think young kids would particularly like these, but our guys still like them, too, so they’ve become an Easter tradition.

We have another tradition that didn’t exactly start out as a tradition. No one likes hard-cooked eggs (except maybe for a deviled egg or two), so we never did the egg-dyeing. I kind of hate that my kids never did that, but it seemed a waste to do all of that when no one liked to eat them. I think I used to put candy in the little plastic eggs, but later just dumped it in the Easter basket. One years my husband decided to do an Easter Egg hunt with money in the eggs, mostly coins. I’m not sure why — maybe it was just spontaneous. But the kids have asked for it every year since. It was funny this morning — Jeremy and Jason (22 and 19) asked if we were doing that again this year, saying things like, “Well, of course, we really do it for Jesse.” 🙂

We traditionally do the hunt after Sunday afternoon dinner — though I think sometimes we’ve done it after Sunday evening church. It was in the 30s this morning, but warmed up a little in the afternoon, so it was a pleasant day. Here are a few pictures from “the hunt.”

Starting point:

Some are hidden on the ground, under leaves, in the drainspout, etc., but Jim does put some in unusual places:

By the way — that’s a scenic view of my neighbor’s junk pile, isn’t it? That’s what I see from my place at the dining room table. I’d like to plant a tree in the line of vision.

One year we were running short of plastic eggs, and Jim dashed out to the store at the last minute. The regular pastel ones were all out, but he found these:

Seems a little strange to see Spiderman on Easter! 🙂

Here’s part of Jeremy’s collection. At some point they stop and count so Jim can tell them how many are left. He’s actually started keeping a list of where he put them because in previous years he’s have a hard time remembering the last few.

Jason finds the last one:

Everyone counting up their finds:

Jeremy’s shirt, in case you’re wondering, says, “Maybe if this shirt is witty enough, someone will finally love me.” 🙂

When we were first married, I was pretty anti-everything related to holidays that wasn’t directly related spiritually. But one year I heard someone whom I highly respected explain the Christian versions of the symbols like the egg. So I realized that Christians could use those things in good conscience. I didn’t agree, necessarily, that it was right for us to do, at first, but I realized it was one of those things Christians could differ on and still love each other. 😀 Then one year when the kids were small, I thought about Easter baskets and decided there was nothing in the world wrong with them. And somewhere along the way, I began to realize that all of springtime is a picture of the resurrection, as the Martin Luther quote I posted a few days ago mentioned. So I relaxed about it all a lot. 🙂

We still don’t do the Easter bunny, though. That never quite made sense to me. And I don’t like how people in public will ask kids, “What’s the Easter Bunny bringing you?” as if it were a springtime version of Santa Claus. We don’t exchange gifts — I think I used to put little toys, pencils, and stuffed animals in the boys baskets, but overall it was pretty simple.

On that note, I had a laugh his morning. Jim had put the coins in the eggs before the kids got up. When I went upstairs after breakfast, I saw an egg on my dresser in front of the jewelry box. I thought, “Oh, how sweet — he left me a little something.” We don’t usually do anything for each other for Easter. I thought maybe it was a little piece of candy or something. I picked it up and it rattled! I opened it — and there was a smaller plastic egg inside. I opened that, and there was….nothing. I laughed and told everyone about it later. Jason said, “Now you have to give her something, Dad!” No, I just thought it was funny. Come to find out Jesse had unearthed it when he was cleaning his room yesterday, and asked Jim where to put it, and Jim told him just to put it in our room. But I didn’t notice it til this morning.

One of the best parts of Easter, to me, is the reflection on Christ’s death and resurrection all through the week. Though as Christians we commemorate the resurrection every Sunday, and the resurrection is why we meet on Sundays, there’s a sense in which it is nice to have this time to really focus on it (just like we should be thankful every day, but Thanksgiving is a special time to especially remember all we have to be thankful for).

Another of the best parts of Easter is the music. We always have special music at Easter time, and it is so beautiful and uplifting. The choir tonight didn’t do a cantata, but rather a number of songs with one of our men reading selected Scripture passages in between.

I’ve posted a lot of quotes, poetry, and hymns related to Easter, and I have a few still in my files, but didn’t want to overdo it. But I think I’ll leave you with one last one.

The strife is o’er, the battle done;
The victory of life is won;
The song of triumph has begun:
Alleluia!

The powers of death have done their worst;
But Christ their legions hath dispersed;
Let shouts of holy joy outburst:
Alleluia!

The three sad days are quickly sped;
He rises glorious from the dead;
All glory to our risen Head!
Alleluia!

He closed the yawning gates of hell;
The bars from heaven’s high portals fell;
Let hymns of praise His triumphs tell!
Alleluia!

Lord, by the stripes which wounded Thee,
From death’s dread sting Thy servants free,
That we may live, and sing to Thee:
Alleluia!

Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!

Author of the words is unknown
Author of the music is Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina

And for a very moving story about the power of the resurrection, see My Son, My Son! My Only Son! from The Jungle Hut, a great blog I just discovered.