Easter Morning

As the world sings triumphant cries to heaven
over death that You conquered,
help us, Lord, tomorrow as well,
when the dresses are put away
and the candy is all eaten
and on with life we go
let us not forget.

The celebration of Your Resurrection over death
is a celebration of life
that should continue
well beyond the sunrise service
and the music, rehearsed for days prior;
it is beyond the sign of spring
beyond the lily
beyond new lambs
grazing in open fields.

Resurrection is a daily celebration over fear;
man's greatest and most powerful enemy.
Fear of tomorrow,
fear of our yesterdays,
fear of what shall become of our young
our old
our unborn.
Resurrection is replacing fear
with physical action.

This alone,
the most touching and profound of Your signs
that fear is dead
and belief in You brings,
not just hope
but life.

What better living parable could You have brought?
All fear death. All.
Even in the garden,
You took on our fear
if for only moments,
it was as real as our fears can be real
and You knew then
that this single enemy
must be destroyed.

And, You sacrificed Your life,
leaving those who had been comfort, and follower;
You left them behind,
to conquer fear.

I shall cling to this now,
and the tomorrows given me.

Peace and Thanksgiving lifted unto You.

The Cocoon and The Butterfly

A man found a cocoon of a butterfly.
One day a small opening appeared, he sat and
watched the butterfly for several hours as it
struggled to force its body through that little
hole. Then it seemed to stop making any progress.
It appeared as if it had gotten as far as it
could and it could go no farther.

Then the man decided to help the butterfly, so
he took a pair of scissors and snipped off the
remaining bit of the cocoon.

The butterfly then emerged easily.
But it had a swollen body and small, shriveled
wings. The man continued to watch the butterfly
because he expected that, at any moment, the
wings would enlarge and expand to be able to
support the body, which would contract in time.

Neither happened! In fact, the butterfly spent
the rest of its life crawling around with a
swollen body and shriveled wings.

It never was able to fly.

What the man in his kindness and haste did not
understand was that the restricting cocoon and
the struggle required for the butterfly to get
through the tiny opening were God's way of
forcing fluid from the body of the butterfly
into its wings so that it would be ready for
flight once it achieved its freedom from the cocoon.

Sometimes struggles are exactly what we need
in our life. If God allowed us to go through
our life without any obstacles, it would cripple
us. We would not be as strong as what we could have been.

And we could never fly.

Author Unknown

Easter Parade

In your Easter bonnet, with all the frills upon it,
You'll be the grandest lady in the Easter Parade.
I'll be all in clover and when they look you over,
I'll be the proudest fellow in the Easter Parade.
On the avenue, Fifth Avenue, the photographers will snap us, And you'll find that you're in the rotogravure.  Oh, I could write a sonnet about your Easter bonnet,  And of the girl I'm taking to the Easter Parade.

Written by Irving Berlin

Perfect boiled eggs have fluffy, yellow yolks. Here's how to get perfect results every time, so your eggs will taste as good as they look.

Put eggs in a large pot, in a single layer and cover with COLD water. Turn on the heat under the eggs and as soon as they come to a full boil, remove them from the heat and let them sit in the hot water for about 15-20 minutes.

How Fresh Are Your Eggs?

To make sure your eggs are fresh, put raw egg in a glass of water. If it lays on the bottom, it's fresh. If it is on the bottom, but the small end is up, it's still fine. If it is floating in the middle, but not on top, it should be safe, but not very fresh. If it floats, throw it away, it's a rotten egg.