Why I’m feeling very “qualified” this Easter, even though I’m not prepared

Last Updated on April 8, 2023 by Michelle

My favorite holiday on the calendar bursts into the year just when we need it most. But this year it holds extra special meaning for me. And it arrived before I was ready for it.

Scroll to the end for my 4 tips for last-minute Easter baskets.

And don’t miss my simple tips for a BIG Easter egg hunt on a TINY budget. 

 

What’s so special about Easter?

Easter is new life. Literally, Easter is about new life. Easter reminds me every year to begin again. Easter reminds me that no matter how many failures I was involved in this year, or how many deep pains I wallowed in on many dark nights… life is renewed. Spring has returned, chicks are hatching in the incubator, grass is again visible for the first time since our first December snow day, and Christ is alive!

(But, yes, it did sneak up on me. Scroll to the end for 4 simple tips for last-minute Easter baskets.)

What’s so special about this Easter?

This Easter is the first one I’ve celebrated since my daughter’s spinal fusion complications. Her surgery ushered in a set of fears and pains uglier than any I’ve had to hold hands with. I held hands with her ear-piercing pain for a month’s worth of dark evenings. I held hands with her tear-soaked pain when, at some moments, it was her and I fighting against a hospital full of “experts.”

We clung to Christ. We found a clinical trial. Her neurological pathways eventually calmed.

And now it is Easter again. A life worth living is renewed. A spring worth celebrating has returned, chicks who will offer us nutritious eggs when the summer begins to wane are in the incubator, grass that houses grub for our birds and grass that will grow tall and feed our cows is again visible for the first time since our first December snow day, and indeed, my friends, with every fiber of my being I am assured that Christ is alive!

 

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If you would like to celebrate Easter by dyeing some eggs, you’ll love these all-natural egg dyes that my family enjoys.

If you’ve never made Resurrection Cookies on the eve of Easter, I highly recommend starting this tradition today!

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 I just answered the phone.

But this Easter holds another significance for me. Two years ago on April 1st, around 1:00 on that Friday afternoon, I just answered the phone. I stood on the wide plank floors, in my sock feet, half way between my living room couch and my kitchen table, and listened to my mom’s voice.

The words she spoke ushered in a new era of my life. Standing there in my cable sweater and messy bun, surveying the lunch dishes I needed to clean up, I had no idea that the next words I heard would be a conversation I would never forget, one that would open a floodgate of tears, and one that, as hard as it was, I would wish two years later I could hold just one more time.

With each word she uttered after “cancer” my lungs continued to deflate and I found myself unsure if I could refill them.

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I wrote about mom’s phone call, on that chilly Friday afternoon, and how God had prepared me.

And while I have yet to write about the heartbreaking summer I spent holding my daughter’s hand through Complex Regional Pain Syndrome, I did write a little when she began her battle against chronic pain and I shared the verses that I clung to for hope at that time. And I shared on this post on instagram.

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It’s been two years after Mom’s call—the call that announced the unwanted intrusion of cancer into my life.

Just weeks after mom’s death, I found myself in an ambulance, on a dark icy New Years Eve, again having trouble forcing my lungs to work because my heart knew I was going to have to say goodbye to my Daddy too.

After two years of grief, sadness, confusion, and pain, it’s time to celebrate my favorite holiday again. And I, indeed, have much to celebrate.

Now it is Easter again. A life worth living is renewed. A spring worth celebrating has returned, chicks who will offer us nutritious eggs when the summer begins to wane are in the incubator, grass that houses grub for our birds and grass that will grow tall and feed our cows is again visible for the first time since our initial December snow day, and indeed, my friends, with every fiber of my being I am assured that Christ is alive!

I step into Easter with a new understanding this year. You see, not only is He alive, but He has declared me as “qualified.” He has declared me as a co-heir to all His father’s goodness.

What’s it mean to be “qualifed”?

I’ve been forced to think about estate things after Dad passed away, leaving me just 1 brief month… just 30 oh-so-short days after Mom spent her last moments with me… and there I was having to make so many calls. Yet not one lawyer or investor or insurance agent would talk to me. I was one of Charles and Irene’s children. I could tell you stories of their youth. I could describe their favorite flowers. And I could tell you where they bought their orange juice for the past 5 years. Yes, I knew them, and loved them, as much as anyone could. But I wasn’t “qualified” to talk about the sale of their home or even to purchase their tombstones without a legal piece of paper drawn up and signed in some cold, unfamiliar lawyer’s office. A piece of paper that said only one child was “qualified.”

I didn’t have that signed document that qualified me. I wasn’t the executor of their estate.

I’ve been drowning in “unqualifed”… with no answers and no resolution after so long… because I’m not “qualified”…

But all of my experiences with estates and insurance policies and tombstones sit in drastic opposition to the reality that Easter makes so clear. You see as a a child of God’s, I am qualified to receive a full inheritance. I can’t fathom the glory of my heavenly Father. I don’t understand how His sovereignty “works.” I can’t grasp the depth of the trinity or the virgin birth. I don’t understand the immensity of His grace. Or why He would lavish it on me. But yet, despite all that I don’t understand about Him, despite how little I actually know Him, I need no other justification, no paper, no signature, no official meeting, no court date. No, I am “qualified to share in the inheritance.”

Why? Because He has qualified me.

It’s that simple.

When I try to understand this reality in comparison to my earthly experiences of an estate and my inability to qualify for what is rightfully mine, I am shocked and even more grateful that I have been qualified, of no doing of my own, for so much that is not rightfully mine.

Now it is Easter again. And Christ has made my life worth living. He has gifted us with spring as a reminder that He not only is alive but has qualified us to join in His wonderful inheritance. The slight warmth in the sun’s rays? The chicks that are hatching? A well-fed, freckle-nosed calf? I just see them as a tiny downpayment of my inheritance.

Eternity as a child of God? Co-heir with Jesus? That’s an inheritance I can’t even get my head around. But it’s mine. Guaranteed. Without any legal paperwork to draw up or attorneys to call. The baby chicks and the new grass for Scout and Selah to dine on, they’re just sweet little reminders of the inheritance that is to come.

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If you too are considering hatching chicks, make sure you never do this when hatching chicks. I learned that hard way last spring.

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Another guarantee of Easter?

No matter how old my daughters are, they will always want to be greeted with an Easter basket on Easter morning. But as they’ve gotten older, I find I’m less prepared for Easter. This year was no exception. We increased our syrup production by quadrupling our number of taps this year, so I’m collecting sap and boiling and bottling syrup into the wee hours of the morning.

Needless to say, Easter snuck up on me and here I am, a day before, and realize I have to pull together some Easter baskets.

3 Simple Tips for Last-Minute Easter Baskets

If you too need to put together a few baskets quickly, here are some pointers to easy Easter basket assembly:

1. If you don’t have purchased grass for your baskets, it’s easy to make your own! Just run leftover gift wrap or colored paper scraps through your paper shredder. Crinkle the strips and fill your baskets!
2. If you’re short on candy, grab a disposable pastry bag–or just use a sandwich bag even–fill it with orange jelly beans, tie it closed with green ribbon, and you have an adorable jelly bean carrot.
3. And finally, think outside the box (or the basket). Consider something other than candy, such as a tickets to see a movie together, a gift card to their favorite ice cream shop, silly putty (I mean, really, who–at any age–doesn’t like silly putty?), bouncy balls, gardening supplies, trail mix, perfumes, lotions, sunglasses, socks, and card games.

My Simple Tips for Organizing an Easter egg hunt?

If possible, stock up on eggs and small prizes the year before, at the after-Easter clearance sales.

Always invest in the better-quality eggs, unless you enjoy repackaging the eggs that fall open pre-egg-hunt, again and again.

Be creative with lots of non-candy egg stuffing treasures. Consider these small items:

1. erasers,
2. mini bubbles,
3. small balloons,
4. rings (for girls),
5. small hair accessories (for girls),
6. stickers, tattoos, even nickels.

Consider having a prize table and stuffing many eggs with tickets, allowing the child to choose one item off the prize table for each ticket.

Watch here for my quick and simple tips on organizing a BIG Easter egg hunt on a TINY budget.–>

 

Other articles you’ll enjoy:

All-Natural Easter Egg Dyes

More Natural Egg Dyes

Resurrection Cookies Recipe

 

 

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“Thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” Colossians 1: 12-14

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