Dear Mackenzie & Levi,
This morning when you climbed out of bed, daddy and I led
you both on a hunt for special clues. You
ran from room to room squealing and laughing. At the end of our hunt you found
your Easter baskets with bunnies! Real,
live, squishy, cuddly bunnies! We couldn’t
wait to see your faces when you met your new friends! We are so excited for our family to create
memories with our bunnies—we’ve been told we can teach Piper and Sawyer tricks
and that they will have special little personalities just like you each have. How fun is that!?
But here’s the thing, my sweet babies, I struggled with
whether or not we should actually get you bunnies. Because I didn’t want to confuse you about
why we celebrate this day. Bunnies are
wonderful and sweet and special. But
today is special for more reasons than just our new friends.
Today is special because we celebrate the promise that God
made to us when Jesus conquered death.
Let me explain to you a little more about what that means.
Daddy and I talk to you all the time about how broken our
world is. We tell you the story about
how Adam and Eve invited bad things into a perfect world when they chose to
disobey God.
We see the effects of that sin every day around us.
You see it when we’re driving and we pass a car accident
with people who are hurt and headed for the hospital. You feel it when you are running at the
playground and you fall and scrape your knees. You hear about it on the radio
when they tell us that kids in other countries like Africa don’t have clean
water to drink. You experience the
effects of sin in our own home when mommy and daddy argue or when mommy sometimes
burns the pancakes.
God never intended for any of these things to happen
(especially not the burned pancakes). But Adam and Eve made a wrong choice. Because
of that choice, sin was passed down to us. We make bad choices and we sin
daily. And so does every other person
around us. Because of this, we live in a
world filled with bad things.
For a long, long time, it was very hard for mommy to
understand why such a loving God would allow all of the bad in the world to
happen. And I know this might be hard
for you to understand too, which is why I’m writing to you. But over the past year, Mommy has started to
see the bigger picture. Mommy has
started to see God for how truly amazing He is.
One way we could think of it is like a story. And in this story
there is a good side and a bad side. God is the good and Satan is the bad. And while we are here living on earth, Satan
would like nothing more than to make us think that God is not for us. That God is
the bad guy and that He has abandoned us.
But He is for us my sweet babies. And that’s where Jesus comes in. God knew that sin was separating us from
having a relationship with Him. So he
sent Jesus to take the consequences of our sins. Jesus, God’s son, died for both of you so
that you could be on God’s side. The good side.
And here’s the part that momma really loves. And it is why today,
Resurrection Day is so important.
Jesus did something absolutely amazing. After he was beaten and killed, after He died
on the cross for our bad choices, He
came back to life!
Jesus defeated death!
Death could not keep Him from us!
Our sins were not too great for Him!
That’s the part I really
love-- That there isn’t a bad thing in this world that is too great for Jesus!
Jesus promised that someday He is going to return for
us. But He also said that while we are
living on earth waiting for Him, that we will experience some very tough
things. Things like the car accident I
mentioned earlier and pain from your skinned knees.
But something I want you to know, something I’m just now
learning—is that we don’t have to live in fear!
God is so much bigger than all of
the bad in this world. He has covered
it ALL. He has freed us from our own sin
and He has given us freedom from being afraid!
And someday, although we don’t know exactly when, God is
going to give Satan that giant spanking we talk about and then he really won’t
have any more power over our world.
Until then, we will continue to live trusting that God has good
things in store for us—that he has given us beauty even in a world where
there are bad things.
There is so much
beauty. I see beauty every day when
I look at the two of you. When I watch
you run through the house holding hands and I hear you giggling together.
When we sing “You Are My Sunshine” and
whisper “I love yous” to each other in the dark while rocking in our comfy gray
chair.
We will look together for signs of God’s grace and His goodness
in our world.
This summer we will watch new life spring up from our garden
and we will taste the juicy fruit of strawberries in our pink lemonade. We will
picnic by the lake and feed the geese and watch the sun set on another
day. We will watch our bunnies grow!
All of these will be reminders to us of God’s goodness, of
His faithfulness to us and of the gift He gave us through Jesus.
Mackenzie and Levi, my prayer is that throughout your lives,
you will have an overwhelming sense that God is doing something bigger and more
powerful than you can comprehend. That you will know that we are part of His
story. His story of love and healing for
our world.
If I could pray one thing over you my sweet babies, it would
be that you would always know that God is for
you in this story. That His heart is
for you and that His love has paid
and conquered it ALL.
You are SO loved,
Momma
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