New Life!

I ran across this picture last night -- taken a couple of summers ago in my sister's backyard. I love butterflies, I think they are truly one of God's masterpieces, but more so I love what they represent. Beauty. Transformation. New life.

Do you notice the way the butterfly is resting on the flower? Without concern, it seems, for the bee that is also there? What a picture of the resurrected Christ --

New life!

The grave was conquered.

Jesus removed the sting of death.

For us.

That we might live forever.

With Him.

Sin, where are your shackles?

Death, where is your sting?

Hell; has been defeated.

The grave could not hold the King.

(From "Arise My Love" by Newsong)

Tonight as this Easter Day comes to a close, I rejoice that the grave could not hold the King!

My King. Where would I be without you Jesus? My heart is overwhelmed at Your goodness towards me. Thank you for giving your very life, that I might be washed as white as snow. Thank you for your grace, which allows me to fail, but cheers me to rise again. Oh where would I be without you?

Tonight I also rejoice, as I remember another sweet Easter memory . . .

Ten years ago, on a chilly Easter Sunday, in Okinawa, Japan . . . my three bigs were baptized in the East China Sea. I don't have the pictures from that day scanned, but the one above was taken around the same time--and at the very place of their baptisms. A beautiful coral cove, handcrafted by our heavenly Father. Life is so sweet.

I love to ponder the thought that five years later my Teddi girl was born -- on China's southern coast, in Zhuhai. Her city is about six hundred miles south of Okinawa if you were to travel in this very same body of water-- the water that my first babies were baptized in.

Eight years after Bryce, Taylor and Brady were baptized, we stood once again, looking out over this beautiful (South) China Sea , as we said goodbye to Teddi's homeland.

This time, another transformation took place --

as a tiny girl took the hand of her daddy,

and became a daughter forever, an orphan no more.

New life.

Transformation!

Today, our girl celebrated the resurrection with her family. She now understands that Jesus died on the cross for us. For her.

She knows that she is forgiven.

She knows that He loves her, and that He thinks she's beautiful.

New life. Transformation.

Thank you Jesus for the way You have blessed us, and for the way you have woven our family's story together over the seas. Thank you for the new life we have in You. Thank you that we are Yours.

Thank you Jesus, for the cross.

The grave could not hold the King!

Blessings from my Easter nest ~

Tina