It's Almost Easter

They say that this is the earliest that Easter has ever been in my life time. That's pretty early. To me growing up, Easter meant that we HAD to wear new dresses and gloves that matched and sometimes we had to wear a hat along with it. It meant hunting Easter eggs over and over again until the candy was gone. That was about the extent that I understood Easter.
Now that I'm grown, and past grown, I understand it a lot more. I understand that for a Christian, that is what we base our faith on. That Jesus rose from the dead, just as He said He would. He gave himself to die; no one took His life, He gave it freely. He could have called the whole "dying on the cross" off and could have said "no thanks, I'm not interested", but He didn't. He did exactly what God intended for Him to do, and gave Himself up for US! We have no idea what that means until we get to Heaven and see all of it's splendor.
We had someone in our church die earlier this month. He was in hospice with his best friend in the bed next to him. They were arguing over who was going to get to enter the Kingdom first. They were both excited about what was coming next, like a child on Christmas Eve. The first man was coming and going. He explained it to our pastor that he was seeing Heaven's gates opening and closing. He was seeing everyone there waiting for him. He said that it was just like others had said, "that there were people there I didn't expect to see, and others I thought would be there, that weren't". He was so excited and didn't understand why he kept coming back here. I know why! So God could give us a glimpse of what it's going to be like and to get us excited. I know it works on me.
The last 2 months have been particularly hard on my Christian friends from my old church. When I think about the people in leadership positions from my old church and how I thought they were maybe a step-above, I'm so disappointed. I shouldn't be though, because they're only people and we shouldn't look up to people, only Jesus. I believe that God allowed them to fall to humble them and us and to make us look up, not straight ahead. There were some people that Satan used in this particular situation, and I do mean "used". God allowed that too to teach us all that we are in need of a savior always. We can't possibly do anything on our own, only through Jesus. We need to be on our knees before God for ourselves and for others. We need to be in constant prayer for our families, for church leadership, for wisdom and for discernment for all of us. Never stop praying and loving. So much depends on it!