A Reminder of His Grace

The past few weeks have been a bit of a whirlwind. My mom is visiting from Haiti. We took a trip to NYC for a wedding. I brought back a yucky cold as a souvenir...ugh! I started doing admin part time for a friend's Mary Kay business. I am blogging for another friend's jewelry business. And, I have a few other ideas/prospects for the upcoming months that I am praying about.

Sometimes, there is so much LIFE happening that it is hard to decide which direction to go here with my posts. I like to write REAL life stuff but with a purpose and a meaning.

In the midst of everything, I have also found that making that real connection with the Father like I want to seems more of a challenge than it should be. Of course, this brings to mind, "How do I write REAL without Him?" Because nothing is really and truly REAL without Him.

And then....

Bonnie Gray's prompt @ Faith Barista about what Easter means to us this year challenged me....

On Sunday, as we were preparing to check out of our hotel in New York, and the television spouted off "news" {it never REALLY is new, right?}, I was reminded that it was Palm Sunday. I couldn't believe that I had forgotten. It has long been one of my favorite Sundays since childhood.

I love the image of Jesus riding in humble glory on a donkey being honored for WHO He is although the people didn't really understand that at the time. I have loved how the crowd cried, "Hosanna!" using palm branches, cloaks, and coats to pave the pathway that the King of Kings would ride through.

I guess I love this image so much because I know that the way the rest of the week unfolded for Jesus was hard. And really, it is never easy to think of the hard stuff, is it? The Last Supper, The Travail in the Garden, The Betrayal, The Accusations, The Denial, The Beating, The Thorns, The Nails, The Cross, The Spear.....those images are seared in my mind from images of Passion of the Christ as well as personal & church study.

And yet....

I know....

Because I am reminded....

AGAIN....

Without the cross, there is no substance for hope

Without the cross, there is no foundation of grace

Without the cross, there is no depth in love

And in the midst of the HARD things that I face, I don't always want to remember what and how Jesus suffered, not only physically, but emotionally, mentally, & especially spiritually in the excruciating separation from the Father. In essence, He truly experienced Hell, which is why he did it, so that we would never have to know that feeling of isolation from our Creator.

But today I was reminded again to face it....the HARD stuff....of what Jesus did for me, for us.

Measuring my life, my heart, myself in comparison to the cross causes me to feel -- UTTER FAIL!! Oh, how I fall so short!

So what does Easter mean to me?

His grace.

His redemption.

His love.

Even. when. I. fail. Him. and. fall. short. of. His. glory.

So I just wanted to say.....

Thank You!

{I received this picture below in an e-mail for Easter and I thought it said it well.....}