Fresh Asparagus…
the perfect balance of tender and crisp
with the most wonderful earthy, fresh- from -the- garden flavor.
If one could pick a food that encapsulated the season of Spring…
it would have to be Asparagus.
Show me a small
and shriveled seed,
discarded
as a worthless thing;
Smile,
if you will,
that I should kneel…
…there’ll be a Spring!
~Ruth Bell Graham
The Via Dolorosa ~”The Way of Sorrow”:
a devotional journey through the last hours of Jesus earthly life.
~rewritten for children by Havilah Angle~
Station 1: Pilate Condemns Jesus to Die
Looking at Jesus~
Jesus is standing before angry people who are yelling and saying mean, hateful things to him. They scream at him. Some of them tell lies about him, saying that he did bad things and spoke untruths. But Jesus stays quiet, even though he knows that he will be hurt. He knows that His Father is with Him, and that this must all take place to fulfill the Father’s plan to rescue His children from their sins that will surely lead them to death. Jesus knows He, alone, is the one that must be suffer this false conviction and death sentence in order to shed His blood. This precious, innocent, pure Blood will completely cover the sin of all people who accept It…and there will never need to be another sacrifice, again.
Looking at your own heart:
Have you ever had someone scream unkind words or lies at you? How did this make you feel? Jesus felt all that and much more. Take your memories to Jesus. Ask Him for His help in forgiving those that hurt you. Believe that He is your healer. This, too, is a good time to ask forgiveness for the unkind words you may have hurled at someone before. Jesus will hear you and cleanse you.
Eden gathered river rock, moss, and twigs and created our beautiful 2012 Easter centerpiece.
“Left to ourselves we human creatures would be in trouble, huge trouble: we’ve offended God’s holiness, we’ve violated His moral law, we’ve racked up a massive spiritual debt, we’ve betrayed His loving convenant with us, and we’ve completely lost our way in this world. We cannot extricate ourselves: there is no way to make it up to God, no way to avoid the penalties, no way to buy ourselves out of hock, now way to reverse the relational estrangement, or find our way back home.
We must not make the mistake of underplaying the solution from God’s side, as if He needed only to calm down like an angry parent, commute our sentence like a lenient president, cover our debt like a wealthy relative, invite us back like a forgiving spouse, or swoop into rescue us like a search and rescue pilot.
Everywhere we look,
there are fresh new shoots
pushing up through
the dark of the earth’s womb.
Tight little buds are uncurling, stretching out,
and bursting into bloom.
Spring is flitting here and there,
breathing its warm breath on the cold cheeks
of a wintered-over world,
and kissing it awake.
Down by the moss bank
Deep, so deep,
I found a bed of violets
Still half asleep.
