About 5 days before Easter I told my son that we wouldn’t be traveling to see family for Easter. To my surprise, he replied, “What? No family party at grandma’s house? It’s Easter – we ALWAYS have a family party at Easter.” Oh no! This wasn’t the response I had expected or enjoyed hearing.

So after I was able to settle him down, I started thinking, more like panicking, about Easter.

I know that in the past I had such wonderful dreams of Mr. Small Town, the Kid, and I decked out in beautiful Easter outfits, peacefully walking into church and sitting down to celebrate the miraculous resurrection of Jesus. What a wonderful and perfect image.

However, this is more like what happened…

Friday:

After an un-restful night’s sleep, I woke up late and exhausted. There was no caffeinated coffee in the house and, at my weekly Weight Watchers meeting; I was informed that I had gained a pound. Plus, I was still stewing about an upsetting ‘incident’ that happened the day before. Needless to say, I wasn’t having a good morning. So after a stop by Starbucks where I got not only my caffeine fix, but I indulged in some chocolate coffee cake, I started to feel a little better.

After the caffeine kicked in even more, life slowly got better. The kid and I spent the day at a museum with some new friends and had a great time. The weather was great and the kid got to run outside to release some of his energy. Then I received a text regarding the aforementioned ‘incident’ which took a huge burden off my shoulders. Life certainly had turned around from the beginning of the day. After we left the museum, we were able to meet Mr. Small Town at church for a wonderful Good Friday service.

Saturday:

Since Mr. Small Town had to work on Sunday, we had decided to go to a local church that had a Saturday afternoon Easter service. The only problem with this was — the Kid. He’s not known for sitting quietly during anything. After trying to get a sitter, make alternative arrangements, etc., we decided to take him with us. I laid out a nice outfit for the Kid to wear but quickly decided that it wasn’t worth the argument to get him to wear it.

We arrived at church early and we were prepared. (My bag was filled with stuff to keep him occupied if needed. We prepped him with all sorts of expectations about his behavior and what kind of consequences he would get if he chose not to meet those expectations.) We found our seats, far away from people, and had a backup plan/route of escape if we needed to leave quickly. However, the closer the time came for the service to begin, we found ourselves surrounded by people. Not too packed but definitely within close range. Of course the Kid didn’t want to sit next to us – he’s an independent kind of kid – so we agreed on the row in front of us.

The worship music was great and we all really enjoyed the music. The pastor got up to speak. He was about 2 minutes in to talking when the Kid turned around and asked for my phone to play games. Of course, I had planned for this so I had already turned my phone to mute.  About 2 minutes after getting my phone, I hear the faint sound of a fire alarm and then it quickly shut off.  Then I heard it again only this time it was longer and louder. The hair on the back of my neck went up, my eyes got big, and I knew where it had come from. It was coming from my phone! The Kid, who loves fire alarms, had been watching a You Tube video with fire alarms and the sound from the video superseded the mute button on my phone! As people in front of us started turning around Mr. Small Town grabbed the phone from the Kid. It seemed to take forever for him to shut off the video. So I quickly grabbed the phone from him and pushed the pause button to the video. The fire alarm sound finally shut off and people settled back into their seats. By this time Mr. Small Town was angry, the Kid was angry because he knew he was in trouble, and I was embarrassed beyond belief. We quickly put the alternative plan into action and made our escape. Long story short, we didn’t hear much of the service but didn’t dwell on the fact we had to leave. It just wasn’t worth it.

The rest of the day seemed to whirl by as soon as we got home. I had prepared a small egg hunt in our backyard for the Kid. As soon as we went outside, the Kid, who is very inclusive, invited the kids across the street and then ran down the street to get two other kids. We ended up having 8 kids, ages 4 months to 10 years old doing the egg hunt. It was confusing but so much fun for everyone, especially for the Kid.

Later than night when I was putting the Kid to bed, he asked me, “What does surrender mean?” I was a bit shocked because that was what the speaker had been talking about during the service. I wasn’t prepared to answer such a big question on short notice, so I told him that “surrender means different things to different people.”

When the kid was finally down for the night, Mr. Small Town and I sat down and talked about the day. By that time we were able to laugh about the ‘You Tube – Fire Alarm’ incident. Then Mr. Small Town turned to me and said, “I felt God say to me ‘just get your family there and I’ll do the rest of the work.’ To his surprise, I told him that was the same thing that God had been telling me the week before as I wrestled getting the Kid ready for church. Needless to say, it was a good ending to a wild day.

Sunday – EASTER:

With Mr. Small Town off to work, I got up, drank my caffeinated coffee and had a quiet house to myself, my own private ‘sunrise service’. Later I woke up the Kid, snuggled, and made a healthy breakfast. As he was finishing, I told him I was going to get ready for church and explained to him the expectations I had for him that morning. However, I sensed an attitude coming from him. Quickly, I remembered about the surrender conversation from the night before. I reminded him of our conversation and explained to him that surrender means ‘that you surrender your will to someone else’s will. Like, surrendering his will to my will and to do what I expected him to do.’ With the expectations laid out, I went to get ready.

When it came time to leave for church, the Kid proudly shows me that he is ready and the outfit he is dressed in for church – which he thinks is cool. Needless to say, it wasn’t what I had envisioned but I heard God whispering, “Don’t worry about his clothes, his uncombed hair, the old shoes he just put on, or how he smells, just get him there and I’ll do the work.”

On the way to church I suggest to him that he might want to button the rest of his shirt as he only had the top button buttoned. To which he replied that he didn’t want to because he had a t-shirt on under the shirt. Besides, he loved his look! I told him that it looked weird and that people might make fun of him. He angrily replied to me, “You look awful mom! People will make fun of you and what you are wearing!” Ugh! I knew that I had just wounded his tender heart.  “Just get him there and I’ll do the work” God whispered to me.  As I turned the corner towards the church I held out my hand and apologized to him telling him that I really did like his style and that he looked good. He took my hand apologized to me for his harsh words.

Finally, as we pull into the church parking lot, the Kid asks, “Mom, is there anyone in the world who has a stronger will than me?” Of course, how could I not laugh! I replied, “Well, they probably won’t be at church because either their parents have just given up or they are too strong willed to attend.” As we pulled into the parking space at last, we were both laughing and all had been restored between us.

Sunday, Easter, turned out to be the best day of the weekend. The Kid loved Sunday School where he received an ‘evangelcube’ that told the Easter story and I was able to have a wonderful time in the service. We ended up back at Starbucks for coffee where he showed off his cube explaining the Ressurection Story to several people. Afterwards, we ended up at our local park where he played with other kids for 2 hours.

As I sat in my car watching him play, I replayed the whole weekend in my head and one theme kept coming through. God took what I and the Kid thought would be a disaster of a weekend and made it wonderful.  I could have spent the weekend brooding about how unfair life was but instead, I decided to make the best of our circumstances.  God met our realized and unrealized needs for family, connection, and spiritual growth without me doing anything but obeying Him.

And that my friends…. was our perfect Easter! Blessings to all of you!