For the first time in my memory, I am not at church on Easter. Instead, I am sitting at home with a probable case of strep throat. Hubby and the four big kids dressed in their Easter best and went without Joel and I.

While they are reflecting on Easter’s true meaning with the help of our pastor, music, and a message, I get to sit in a nearly empty house and play Easter bunny. Because we want the focus of the day to be on the resurrection of Jesus we delay the whole egg hunting/candy gorging until after church. First things, first.

The explosion and subsequent strewing of the most annoying invention ever, Easter grass, will come later. I will be vaccuming it up for the next several weeks and finding it in odd places, like in diapers and the crisper drawer of the refrigerator. Easter grass multiplies and migrates. A slow invasion, it begins by spilling out of the baskets. It falls to the floor, nearly invisible. The static causes it to cling to objects and it is carried around like burrs that stick to pant legs on a nature hike. The grass falls, like a seed to the fertile ground. It germinates in all its artificial glory, reminding us of Easter long after Easter has faded. No room is immune to the spread of Easter grass.

So how can I best reflect on the day when I am sick and virtually alone? Who will minister to me, how will I maintain focus? Here I am, getting ready to stuff five baskets with Easter grass and candy. Hubby will call when they are on their way home so that I can quickly hide eggs. In my pathetic condition I hope I remember where I put all the eggs. It is much better to find the eggs before the eggs find you.

The baskets are lined on the piano (where else, it is our staging-spot for everything). They are empty and I am trying so very hard to tie it all together some how. My spiritual beliefs and hunger seem to be going unfed today. I am praying, as I tend to my children’s baskets, that it will be a blessing to them. Hopefully they will see the love in the baskets, so small in comparison to the great sacrificial love of Jesus.

Here I am, doing something relatively miniscule and He did something that was astounding. In the name of Love.