I had envisioned this Easter for a while now. It has been a big year for both Nicki and me in many regards, but most importantly, the time from Easter 2010 to Easter 2011 has been an amazing step forward in our faith journey together. During that time frame we settled in at a church 'home' at MCC, made life changing friendships through life changing experiences with our small group, and individually had incredible experiences.
Based on all of that I had been anticipating this Easter as a culmination of the year - and felt as if we were in for a truly special day. Nicki and I started the Easter weekend off on Friday by renting and watching The Passion of the Christ together - which was an amazing experience to watch together. I had an image of a beautiful spring Sunday, sitting with our family and friends in church listening to Shane and Tom set an incredible worship scene and enjoying a day relishing the uniquely incredible gifts God has provided us, and all this day represents. After that I was sure we would spend the day sitting on our back patio with our families enjoying the sun, family, and life.
Well, along the way we moved to Fayetteville, and Easter falls during a time when we are still on our 'church surch' or 'chearch search', and haven't quite settled in on a social circle. We began the day by having to make the decision if we were even going to test the roads given it had been raining for about three days now and there was flash flood warnings all over NWA. We were adamant about heading out and started a tumultuous drive to Fellowship Bible Church - which we have attended for a couple of weeks now. We figured we would arrive early - but when we got off the exit we quickly realized the entire state of Arkansas was headed to Fellowship. We sat in a 20 minute line just to pull in to the parking lot.
By this time we were about 7 minutes late for the start of service, but still in good spirits. As we walked in to the sanctuary the greeter said "we're really sorry, the only space left is standing room only". Hmmm...now what to do? Well, like I said I was convinced this was going to be a special day for both Nicki and me - so in we went.
After all the dramatics - it indeed was worth it. The music was awesome, the message was impactful - and most importantly we were able to spend some time giving thanks for all God has provided us and what he has done for us not only over the last year, but throughout our entire lives. It was readily apparent that God was with us - and the emotion of the day was not lost even amidst our chaotic surroundings.
As for our Easter celebration - while we may not have had our families, we had...Matt Wormer. As you have seen on our recent posts Matt has been a constant presence in our Fayetteville lives. Matt moved to Fayetteville from Cleveland a little over a year ago and has helped us to engrained in the community. We realized early on in our stay here that we both were going to be without family on Easter and decided we would join forces to celebrate.
As Nicki does, she put on an incredible brunch - which could have served 12 - for three of us. It was topped off with a few cookies from a incredible basket of cookies my parents sent us, which were legitimately the best cookies I've ever tasted.
All in all, today served as a wonderful first celebration of Easter in Fayetteville, and a true reminder of the significance of the day.
 |
| Nicki put together an Easter Basket for Wormer - but we decided against having him take on his own personal Easter Egg Hunt. |
 |
| A couple of mamosas or bloody marys to help celebrate |
 |
| While the table was only set for three, there was enough food for 12. |
No comments:
Post a Comment