Some Thoughts.

Easter is always a time of reflection for me.

I don't necessarily consider myself an overly religious person. I am Catholic, I was raised Catholic. I have my beliefs and I try to live true to them, regardless of what others may think. But I don't go around talking about God or Jesus or being saved. I've never been an in your face kind of christian. Don't get me wrong - I'm not saying there is anything wrong with that. Far from it. I'm simply saying - it isn't me. I know how I feel, I discuss this with my husband, with my family, but with random strangers on the internet? I don't feel a need to bring it up. You believe what you believe, I believe what I believe, and we can all be happy never knowing what the other person thinks.

But this time of year, I find myself delving deeper into my beliefs. Being honored that the one being *I* believe created this entire world, and everything and everyone in it, gave up the single most important thing to HIM so that WE could all be saved. My respect for that sacrifice has only increased since becoming a parent. Because never in a million years can I imagine being okay with giving up my only son, no matter who it might benefit. But then, that is what makes me human, after all. The selfishness. I strive to be selfless for my children, for my family, for myself, but let us face facts here: nobody, aside from Jesus, is truly selfless. It's a flaw, granted, but it is the flaw that makes us human. That and free will - and I firmly believe that selfishness arises from free will. A byproduct of it, if you will.

But at Easter, as I contemplate HOW much God must love us all to have willingly given up his child - so that we imperfect beings could continue to live, to love, to fight, to fail. Well, will we ever REALLY be able to thank him enough? I mean, really. If you are a parent, as a parent, can you fathom the sacrifice he made for us? First, to send Jesus forth from heaven into the human world, to watch him grow and teach, and become this perfect being, to suffer and to hurt and then ultimately to die? All for the sake of someone else? I can't. My heart aches to the point of physical pain at merely the THOUGHT of something happening to either of my children. But to know, from the day they are conceived, that ultimately you will have to watch them die? A slow, horrible, painful death, at the hands of others? Oh my.

This is the sacrifice that God made for us. How can we be anything but honored by it?