Easter is still going on!!!

Hello!!  It's been a while since I've written a blog. So much has happened. I had to go to the job fair in DC two times a week before I went on a trip to Alabama. It was exhausting but God was with me every step of the way. I did not feel nervous, I was actually concerned about myself not being nervous!!! I was like ...this is not like me. Can you believe this? I was actually nervous about not being nervous enough!! Typical.

I would like to review. I was reading my first postings and I remember I said I would do this blog everyday for 40 days for Lent. I didn't do it though but I'm glad I started this blog, and I can see the difference from what I've learned from the beginning to now. It's amazing how much more you can grow from this, there's so much room for it. This blog gave me the strength to discipline myself at work and I didn't go on Facebook as much until my birthday week came!! :) I think I will try to keep that habit anyway. I have learned how to keep looking for the positive and that no matter what happens, life will throw us a curveball and it's going to be hard to be "ready" for it but that's why its so important to keep talking to Jesus to maintain a relationship with Him that we know He will be there when the curveball comes. Everything makes more and more sense now.

I have a lot that I would like to share with you but first, let me explain to you what I mean by Easter is still going on!!

I was given this white book that my mom got from the Catholic Church and I love it. I've been reading it every night and would like to share it with you too....

"Records show that Christians, besides celebrating Easter Sunday, celebrated a continuing Easter season as far as back as the beginning of the third century. Outside of Ordinary Time, it became the Church's longest season  - a 50-day stretch from Easter Sunday to Pentecost Sunday. It was not a time for penitential practices. Fasting and kneeling were not permitted. It was a time to exult in God's goodness.
Why is the Easter season so long?
Because Christians believed that the Resurrection was just too big and too important to be celebrated for only one day, or even one week.
Why 50 days and not 10 or 20?
Because there was already in place a Jewish feast called "Pentecost" (a harvest festival) which took place 50 days after the Passover. When Pentecost became a Christian feast celebrating the descent of the Spirit, Christians turned the time between Passover and Pentecost into the "Easter Season".

After the Sabbath as the first day of the week was drawing

Mary Magadalene and the other Mary came to see the tomb

And behold, there was a great earthquake: for an angel of the Lord descended from 

Heaven and approached, rolled back the stone and sat upon it (MT 28:1-2)

At times like Easter there is something within us that wants to be hopeful. Yet, we are afriad to let it out, particulary when we have seen so many hopes dashed. Hope is a tender feeling, easily bruised. When you hope, you are vulnerable. YOu can make a fool of yourself especially when your hopes do not turn out. When the pessimist turn out to be right, then you appear foolish, naive. To have hoped and lost often makes us more guarded. 

In the Bible, even those who suffer are able to hope because their hope is based on upon what God can do, not what they can do. 

Perhap this Easter season, I should allow myself to hope. There was the reality of Good Friday which means that I accept the fact of suffering and failure. But Easter is also a reality --- it shows what God can do and it offers me hope no matter the situation." 

Amen ! :)