Easter

I love Easter. I found myself especially thankful this year for my church, for my family, and for friends who have become like family.

We've lived in Montgomery, Alabama for 7 years. I have grown to love this town and I feel a deep connection to this place we call home. It is home.

Recently, I heard that it takes 7 years before you adapt to a culture and call it your own. I have found this to be so true. In this 7th year of living here, without question I bought my children coordinating Easter outfits. Each are white with a hint of blue, and Laurie's dress has some gorgeous ivory lace. This is so Montgomery! In the past I've just pieced together hand me downs or pulled out our Sunday best. But this year I went all out, well, mostly - the boys' outfits did not have lace.

I loved it, they loved it! Of course they did, they are Montgomery kids, born and raised.

 

I justified the expense knowing that George could one day wear Stephen's outfit. Also, we don't wear dress shoes in this town. It's an old tradition. It is perfectly acceptable for children up to the 4th grade to go barefooted to church. I have never bought dress shoes for any of my kids!

Many of these traditions intimidated me at first, but the longer I live here, I have grown to accept and even embrace fancy children's clothes. Financially, I've learned to partake when I can and enjoy it, but to not feel insecure in our Wal-mart/Old Navy/Target attire that we wear most of the time.

I got a kick out of this article that circulated Facebook last week about how the royals dress their children like southerners (or maybe it is the other way around, southerners dress like royalty). 

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This quote below was printed in the top of our church bulletin on Sunday.

“If Jesus rose from the dead, then you have to accept all that he said; if he didn't rise from the dead, then why worry about any of what he said? The issue on which everything hangs is not whether or not you like his teaching but whether or not he rose from the dead.”
― Timothy Keller, The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism

Our choir sang this gorgeous piece of music on the night of Palm Sunday. AMAZING!