Easter Weekend

0This weeks heartwrenching activities ...and my own posting of National Awareness information ... has meant for some pretty heavy blogging. Add to that, my own contemplation, that went deeper in thought than planned ... and my blog this week, went rather serious and deep. So, while yesterday's was rather light, I was planning on today's being light too ... however, it's Easter weekend ...and my heart is more on the walk down the dusty road, and the empty tomb than light breezy fun blogging. I suppose ..the fun will be back ...it always comes.
My heart is broken for the family who lost a little girl this week.Jamie Bolin. I am saddened by the fact that my blog hits doubled when I put the amber alert out there, and yet, more than quadrupled (As of 10:45 pm, I have had more than 10 times the normal hits for one day) after news of her death was announced. Why is this? Some is pure voyerism ... wanting to see what they can see ...but my suspicion is ... information, looking for information on this senseless, unnecessary ... heartbreaking crime. Some kind of answer that will tell us WHY and hopes that since I posted the alert ....will I have an answer. I don't. I only have a saddened heart that our state didn't act as soon as she was missing and wondering, had the alert gone out immediately instead of after they'd confirmed all their political satifying 'requirements'.
This weekend, I will go to church, and celebrate. I will celebrate the fact that I have a God who loves me. I will celebrate that I have a God who has forgiven me of sins and who made it possible for me to come directly to him with my burdens, my heartbreak, my questions ..even those that cannot be answered. I will celebrate that no matter how painful things are ... Christ bore the pain ... so that I can have life everlasting ... with him .. in heaven ... and that he may have died a painful, torturous death because of the sins of me and those like me ... he conquered that sin, he overcame the grave and he rose again.
So, this weekend, I am sad, and celebrating ... so many will be asking "if there is a God, how could he have allowed this to happen to that little girl" So many people will use what happened to her as proof that God, if he does exist has no care for us. So many will use the experience that our state has gone through as a way to steer us toward the evil hearts of men and away from the forgiveness and life in God. The reality is ... God wanted worshippers who chose to love him. He gave us free choice. As individuals, and as a society, in Deuteronomy 30:19 he told us (as a society) to "Today I ask heaven and earth to be witnesses. I am offering you life or death, blessings or curses. NToday I ask heaven and earth to be witnesses. I am offering you life or death, blessings or curses. Now, choose life! Then you and your children may live. ."
Some always choose death ..which comes with the curses ..and harm the innocent ..including the children. Some who've been harmed ...choose life ... and break the cycle of the curse that was before them. My heart is breaking that this man chose death instead of life and a young innocent girl was the cost. It is a tradgedy for her family, our state and our country, even our world. What is so hard for people to grasp ..while it wasn't the family's choice, it wasn't our choice ... it did come down to one thing ... a choice ..the wrong choice of a man. Not God's ... he didn't want us robots worshipping him and not knowing we were worshipping him ... he wanted us to worship him from a heart of choice and love ... so he gave us the choice to choose life or death. With that choice came a warning ... Today I ask heaven and earth to be witnesses. I am offering you life or death, blessings or curses. Now, choose life! Then you and your children may live.
No one but the choice of this man was at fault for having chosen death. If you're wondering why God did not stop him and saying "That's why I want nothing to do with God" ... I beg of you to stop, think and ponder that statement. The very fact that you CAN say that's why I want nothing to do with God, is why things can happen. Because you can choose. Your other option for God to stop it is for him to stop our choices ... and to say "I've had enough, all will worship me". It's an either or. Today I ask heaven and earth to be witnesses. I am offering you life or death, blessings or curses. Now, choose life! Then you and your children may live.

Tears to Laughter
by Peggikaye Eagler

A long walk down a dusty road.
A burden so heavy, can one man bear the load?
The crowds gathering to jeer and to jest.
Some on the outside, grief fills their chest.

The burden is dropped into the ground.
The man to it nailed, hammering the only sound.
A crown of thorns is placed on His head.
Vinegar sponge to his lips, dying for me instead.

The men will gamble, tearing his robe for the prize.
The devil has blinded, they've believed his lies.
The man will be buried in a rich followers tomb.
Mary stands crying, "This man came from my womb!"

Angels stand guard waiting to announce victory,
The Son of God risen! Completes the promised story.
His sacrifice paid, blood shed on my behalf.
My spirit forgiven, with God forever ... we laugh!
© Peggikaye Eagler
Some quotes by CS Lewis
"Try to exclude the possibility of suffering which the order of nature and the existence of free-wills involve, and you find that you have excluded life itself."
--The Problem of Pain

"If the universe is so bad...how on earth did human beings ever come to attribute it to the activity of a wise and good Creator?"
--The Problem of Pain

"God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world."
--The Problem of Pain
"When you are arguing against Him you are arguing against the very power that makes you able to argue at all."
--Mere Christianity