4/11/2012

Each year, prior to Easter, we have the opportunity at church to purchase a beautiful flower to help decorate the sanctuary on Easter Sunday morning. After the service, we are free to take our flowers home. This year, we bought a flower in honor of our two babies in heaven.

Easter = new life = reason to celebrate for those who are enjoying new life in heaven

This hydrangea is big and beautiful, full of blooms and full of life. I love it!

I've mentioned before how my heart has been encouraged by flowers planted in honor of our miscarried baby. There is just something so joyful about springtime and flowers in bloom.

I'm reminded of Luke 24:5 "Why do you look for the living among the dead?" This was asked of the women who came to the tomb, looking for the body of a dead Jesus Christ. My babies are not living on earth, but they are very much alive. I do not seek them at the cemetery, for I know that they are not there. They are alive and I am reminded of them when I see the beauty of the living - the beauty of flowers in springtime.

And Matthew 22:32 comes to mind too. "God is not the God of the dead, but of the living." In the same way that Jesus could talk of God being the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (who were long since dead, on earth), He is the God of my children who are dead on earth. Once life begins, it has no end. It goes on forever. A short portion of that life is spent on earth, while the rest is spent in eternity and has no end.

How gracious is He to invite us to join Him in a glorious eternity?! What marvel and beauty we will behold, if we make Him our choice. This is all my hope and peace. Because He lives, we can face tomorrow... and each day thereafter.

This year, more than ever before, I am enjoying spring and the gorgeous flowers, which are the small foretaste of what is yet to come!