Easter Advent

We are starting our Easter Advent tonight.

13 Images are clipped up. We will read one or two of these stories a night until Good Friday. We will read the last three on Easter Sunday.

This is my favorite painting. Antanio Ciseri, the artist, captured tangible emotion and movement in his painting Ecce Homo - "Behold the Man"

                On the mantel are items the kids can hold during the Bible readings.

                       My daughter and I made a crown of thorns out of blackberry branches.

 Wooden dice to remember that the soldiers cast lots for the robe. A leather satchel that holds 30 dimes.

                     On an index card, I wrote the scripture to read that night and a hymn to sing.

                   I purchased two of these books so I could use one for pasting the pictures.

A Easter Advent Hymnal. Here's our playlist.

Hosanna, Loud Hosanna -Jeanette Threlfall

The More I Seek You -Kari Jobe

What Have I done -Adie Camp

Ten Thousand Angels -Roy Overhold

A Garden in the Night -Ken Bible

Above All -Michael W. Smith

Holy, Holy -Michael W. Smith

Be Unto Your Name -Gary Sadler and Lynn DeShazo

Via Dolorosa -Sandi Patti

How Deep the Father's Love for Us -Stuart Townsend

Up From the Grave He ARose -Robert Lowery

He Lives -Alfred H. Ackley

Glorious -Paul Baloche

This is the Advent Table setting I purchased from Dayspring. I got this recommendation from the Holy Experience blog by Ann Voskamp. She has great ideas for Easter traditions. Check out her website. She also has a printable Christian Sedar Advent to read for your own family advent. http://www.aholyexperience.com/2012/03/the-best-easter-dinner-with-a-free-printable-start-a-christian-tradition-messianic-seder/

Why?

I am no expert on Diabetes. And I didn't create this blog to give information on the disease. There are books, websites, pamphlets, print outs, magazines, diabetic educators, doctors and your mailman's aunt for all the diabetic education you and I will need. And if you are anything like me, I was so overloaded with diabetic information right after diagnosis, I didn't think I had room left in my brain for any other concept. So this blog is not for the medical search. It's for the soul search.

How are you holding up? Really? Be honest.

Have you asked 'why' yet? It's okay if you have. I think we all do. The closet thing I've come to for an answer is a trust in a God who has our lives planned and orchestrated. I keep reminding myself of the scripture (in fact I have it written and taped on our bathroom mirror) Psalm 139:16 "Your eyes saw me when I was formless; all (my) days were written in Your book and planned before a single one of them began." This diagnosis wasn't a surprise to God, although it was to me. So, I rest in His knowledge. I look at Gloria and realize that nothing of my own power picked her out and created her. It was God who knit her in my womb. And it is God who loves her beyond what even this mother's heart can love her with. I know it's a clich'e phrase, "God has a plan for your life" but if you dig beneath that flippant phrase and dwell on the reality it has in your child's life, you might begin to stand in awe. When I started to dwell on that reality, I began to see what God was weaving directly into our daughter's life and ours as well. I could see strands of strength, courage, responsibility and perseverence fastening themselves where I thought they once existed. How vivid and tangible those attributes are with diabetes intertwined.

So, I encourage you to put the "why" off for a second and go over to your child and take them up in your arms, if you can. Look them over. Smell their hair. Look into their eyes. Take them in close to your heart and then, silently thank God for the priveledge of being asked to take care of them.

You can do this. You really can.

Recently Diagnosed

Has your child recently been diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes? Are you perusing the internet trying to learn as much as you can? I hope you'll land here for a little while, and just catch your breath. I  want to encourage you and tell you with a firm conviciton, that there is hope after diagnosis. And life; a good, full and meaningful life.