Easter Anniversary

From Google Images

Today we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ, our savior.  Thank you, Lord, for coming to live as a man, you took on all of our sins and allowed yourself to be sacrificed on the cross, then defeated death and rose again on the third day.  What an awesome gift of love!

Easter has always been special for our family.  Growing up, we dyed eggs and had baskets of treats, but we knew the Easter Bunny was imaginary and just for fun.  My parents taught us the true reason for Easter, and where our focus really needed to be.  Since the resurrection of Jesus was something to celebrate and be thankful for, it was easy to tie the fun parts of Easter in with that celebration.  My husband and I have tried to do that for our daughter as well; have fun with the imaginary Easter Bunny, but keep the real reason we have Easter in the forefront.

From Google Images

Today is special for another reason; it's our 23rd wedding anniversary!  When I looked at the calendar a couple of months ago to see when Easter was this year, it hit me kind of funny that it was on our anniversary date.  It's like we're on celebration overload today!  I've been feeling like we need to keep Jesus' resurrection first, anniversary second, and Easter Bunny in a distant third.  At fourteen, my daughter is growing up, and for the first time in her life, wasn't interested in dying eggs, and hasn't mentioned wanting an egg hunt. I did get her a little something to find this morning, but I think maybe I did it more for me, because it makes me a little sad that she's outgrowing some fun childhood traditions.

Since it has been feeling a little odd celebrating two such very important things on the same day, I felt sure this was the first time our anniversary and Easter fell on the same date.  Since I've been kind of torn on exactly how to feel about all of it, I'd surely remember if it had happened before, right?  Wrong!  Just to be sure, I checked out past dates of Easter, and it fell on April 8, 2007.  That was only five years ago!  How could I forget that?  Sharing the date obviously didn't make as big an impression on me as it has this year.

So, on this jam-packed Sunday, Happy Resurrection Day to you all, Happy Anniversary to my dear husband and me,  and Happy Growing Up to our beautiful daughter!