He Lives...

I love Easter. I love everything that it represents and symbolizes. As a kid, I loved dyeing Easter eggs, and Easter egg hunts, and brand new dresses, and pastel everything. I loved the anticipation of seeing what the Easter Bunny had brought. I loved hunting for money filled eggs, and my Dad's famous "scripture hunts". This year I love that I'm a Mother, and, although Ruby is very young, I enjoyed doing all of those things with her.


I loved seeing her face light up as she reached for the Reese's peanut butter egg that was in her pink "peep" basket.


I loved our attempt at dying Easter eggs, and watching as she placed the hard boiled egg in her mouth, rather than in the cup of dye.


I loved dressing her up in the adorable dress that her Grandpa Pitts and Grammy sent her, and trying to gather together enough of her little baby hair to make two pig tails, with bows.


I so enjoyed watching her sit in the grass, during the egg hunts, hitting plastic eggs together, and sucking lollypops.


I loved taking her to the Easter pageant, and wished, (for a brief second) that she was older, at least old enough to understand what it was all about...that her Savior died, so that she might live.









I loved watching her in Sacrament Meeting today, sitting on Grandma Judy's lap, reverently, as if not to disturb the sweet spirit that was present (I really think that she must have felt it).

Not only do I love Easter, and everything that it stands for, but I love that we celebrate Easter in the spring, a time of new birth and rebirth. A time when the world comes to life, and resurrects itself from a dark, cold winter. It's a time of blooming flowers, chirping birds, gentle rain showers, cool breezes...

Most of all, I love Easter, because I love my Savior. I honestly cannot even fathom the pain and suffering that he endured, for me, and for all of us. When I really sit and think about it, I am always filled with emotion. Tears. Uncontrollable tears. Today, (in Sacrament Meeting), I was an absolute wreck. (All I can say is, when you pray, be careful of what you ask for, because you just may get it.) I woke up this morning and pleaded with my Father in Heaven that I would be able to really feel and understand Christ's Atonement on a different level. I went straight into the office, and began printing off conference talks, and Ensign articles (one of which was Bruce R. McConkie's The Purifying Power of Gethsemane, in the which he bore his famous final testimony of Christ). I devoured chapters of Jesus the Christ, and soaked up more, beautiful, inspired words by Elder Maxwell, testifying of the Savior, of His infinite Atonement, His Crucifixion, and His Resurrection. I can't even begin to explain the feelings of love and adoration that I felt for my Savior this day, as I searched him out, studied about him, learned of him, and even watched different portrayals of His Passion (To this end was I born, and The Passion of Christ), both of which moved me to tears. I love Him. I want to be like Him. I want to learn more about Him. I want to be numbered among one of His true disciples. I want for his Atonement to take life in me. I don't want for His sacrifice (in my behalf), to be in vain. I know that He abolished death, and broke it's bands, and that His Resurrection paved the way for us all, that we will live again, just as I know, He Lives...