Easter candy? Yum. Easter outfits? Pretty. Easter bunny? Terrifying… What’s Easter to me?

Before I get started, know that this is a personal post. It’ll be about my faith and how I’ve come to know my Savior Jesus.

I was baptized 2 years ago on Easter Sunday.

I had became a believer in Christ back in college. I went to a few Bible studies and attended church a handful of times. But the day I truly became a follower was the day I asked God to reveal Himself. With a simple question like that, a serenity had fallen upon me. I felt rest in a very stressful time of school and social pressures. People ask me all the time, why are you Christian. And that’s my answer. It was simply a feeling and a calm that overcame me, a personal connection that I felt with God.

I’ve learned a few things since I started following Jesus.

Life doesn’t get easier. 

Those hurdles? Those challenges? Those bumps in life? I still experience them. Life is still hard, but I have people to share my burdens. I’m able to lean on God, my rock, to know that He has plans for me to succeed. I also have a community to share my worst but also to be with me to celebrate my best.

A different meaning of Love.

I love food. I love my cat. I love my family. Those are all very easy to understand right? But I learned a different kind of love, a love where you do forgive and forget and a love so deep that it doesn’t make sense. Think about the dirtiest, filthiest, germiest thing you’ve ever come across. Mine might be the person who spoils TV shows on Facebook, and to make things worse, he’s sick with the flu, and even worse, he’s part of hate groups that I will never understand… But that’s the people that God loves. And I’m trying to love those too (though it often tests my patience).

By no means am I a first-rate Christian. I wake up with doubts frequently and have to ask myself “Does God exists?” But there are so many times He answers this by fitting puzzle piece together, pieces I didn’t even know existed. I don’t believe in coincidences, but I do believe that God has perfect timing and perfect plans.

So what does Easter mean? Easter celebrates Jesus’ death on the cross for our sins, how he’s conquered death by rising from the grave, and how He’s set an example for how I should live my life.

What does Easter mean to you? How do you celebrate Easter?

In His Love,
Jay