Easter

We had a nice, quiet Easter weekend....and super cute Easter outfits, thanks to Grammie and Poppa! I actually made it to church on Sunday. I loved it! It's the first place I've been (outside of the house) in 3-1/2 months besides the doctor's office. I was totally wiped out, and spent the rest of the day on the couch, but it was great. I am coming out of this slowly, but surely!

The girls gave us a fabulous Easter lesson (they're getting really good at lessons since they've been in charge of them for Family Home Evening since I got sick), and we had a nice dinner of fruit salad...yes, fruit salad....simple, but delicious! :) Definitely more low-key than our usual Easter celebration, but we all enjoyed it.

I absolutely love Easter. It has always been my favorite holiday. The more I come to know my Savior, and the more I realize what the Atonement and Resurrection mean for me and my family...and for all of us...the more sacred and beautiful Easter becomes. The past three months have changed my relationship with Him and my understanding of what he has really done for us. I am so grateful for this. It is hard (sometimes impossible) to be grateful for our trials when we are in the middle of them, but when we can see how we have grown spiritually, and are being refined, they are truly a blessing. And He is there for us every step of the way. I thought Elder Eyring's talk from conference a couple of weeks ago was amazing....just what I needed to hear:

"My purpose today is to assure you that our Heavenly Father and the Savior live and that They love all humanity. The very opportunity for us to face adversity and affliction is part of the evidence of Their infinite love. God gave us the gift of living in mortality so that we could be prepared to receive the greatest of all the gifts of God, which is eternal life. Then our spirits will be changed. We will become able to want what God wants, to think as He thinks, and thus be prepared for the trust of an endless posterity to teach and to lead through tests to be raised up to qualify to live forever in eternal life.
It is clear that for us to have that gift and to be given that trust, we must be transformed through making righteous choices where that is hard to do. We are prepared for so great a trust by passing through trying and testing experiences in mortality. That education can come only as we are subject to trials while serving God and others for Him.
In this education we experience misery and happiness, sickness and health, the sadness from sin and the joy of forgiveness. That forgiveness can come only through the infinite Atonement of the Savior, which He worked out through pain we could not bear and which we can only faintly comprehend.
It will comfort us when we must wait in distress for the Savior’s promised relief that He knows, from experience, how to heal and help us. The Book of Mormon gives us the certain assurance of His power to comfort. And faith in that power will give us patience as we pray and work and wait for help. He could have known how to succor us simply by revelation, but He chose to learn by His own personal experience."

Yes, we were sent here to be tried, to learn, even to suffer, but we are never alone. In our darkest hours come our greatest opportunities to know our Savior. I am grateful for the difficult times that help me to depend completely on the One who knows exactly how to comfort me. I know that He is the true source of peace and joy, not just on Easter, but every day of our lives.