Some Easter Thoughts

Are you familiar with The Small Seed? I've been following them for some time and I just love what they do. They put together this Easter study guide complete with pictures and ideas for how to incorporate The Holy Week leading up to Easter. 

It's kind of sad that I've never really done much to prepare for Easter in the past and while I could have stressed out thinking that I needed to start any and all traditions with that (it's so different when you don't have kids, you know?) I felt the need to study more of the Savior's week leading up to his death and resurrection. And this kind of study this week was exactly what I needed and I gained so many new insights. 

I've been taking this Isaiah institute class and this last Tuesday we talked about Christ being the "perfect brightness of hope." Something that I never caught on before was He never discussed in detail His suffering even though He could have or that there was an opportunity to. He quotes sections of Isaiah but does not quote the section about Him being bruised for our iniquities or with His stripes we are healed. It's like he purposely skipped over that part. He only mentions the hope that comes when we follow Him. One mentioned in class that it might be because we could focus so much on the detail of how He suffered rather than understand what that suffering means for us and how we can be changed through it. I thought President Nelson's talk on that this last conference was very fitting. 

I kept thinking about Christ's admonition to love one another. Why is that brought up so much? Well, God knows us humans really well. And it was a commandment that would need to be taught again and again. Especially in our day of social media and the comparison trap. One thing that I've been learning more and more is that we're all on the same team. We're all on the fight against sin and not against each other. When I think of it that way, I'm more inclined to cheer on people and be excited for all their accomplishments because it's all about of the teams' success. :) And that's why we are here to have compassion and love and not to judge. Rarely do we know people's full situation and so having a little more compassion can go a long way. We're all on this journey together. 

Through this study, the question that I had at the top of my study journal was, "if I was there during Jesus' time, where would I have been during the Holy Week?" I loved studying that question while reading Sis. Burton's talk last Women's Session about 'certain women'. 

I'm so grateful for this time of year of renewal and hope. He truly is the Prince of Peace!