Growing up, the week leading to Easter was such a fun time. Mom would boil a dozen or more eggs and let me color them. We would line up five or six bowls with Paas egg dye, bend that little wire holder so as to not get any of the dye on my fingers, and see if I could two-tone an egg without overlapping the middle.

On Easter morning, I would find my Easter basket (I still have it) on the living room couch and it would be filled with that grassy green stuff, Fannie May eggs, and a solid chocolate bunny, which the first bite always had to be the ears. Outside, Dad would hide the Easter eggs around the back yard and as I picked them up, the morning dew caused the dye to run on my fingers, just what I tried to avoid when I was coloring them. Later, all suited up, we would head to church, then off to Grandma’s for a meal. As a child, Easter, like Christmas, didn’t have the religious significance or impact that it did for the adults I was around.

Easter in 1988 was a beautiful early April day, sunny with temperatures in the mid-Sixties, at least that’s what Google says. Actually, I have no recollection of that day. My two boys, aged nine and a half and one and a half were most likely at my parent’s house, getting mom’s traditional easter basket full of chocolate and hunting for Easter eggs in the backyard. I most likely, sitting bedside of my wife Cindy who was in the hospital actively dying from cancer. An Easter day that was easily forgotten.

As Suzanne and I raised our family, Easter was again a fun day. At church, the kids were usually in some sort of Easter play or reading. Afterward, an egg hunt was always on the agenda, and then the trip to Granddad and Grandma Crider’s for Easter dinner with all of Suzanne’s family, a tradition that carries on to this day.

But for some reason, Easter seems extra special to me this year and that became apparent a couple of weeks ago. Suzanne’s brother & sister-in-law were performing in the Passion Play over in Bloomington so we took her dad to see the performance. I’ve been to the Passion Play before and this one was no different, long and what seems to be drawn out until you get to the last half an hour or so when the pace of the play finally picks up. I was somewhat disinterested when the scene in the play arrived and Jesus stepped out of the tomb! At that instant, a wave of emotions came over me that I wasn’t expecting and tears welled up in my eyes. What just happened, I thought? Why now? Why this year?

Thinking about it for some time now and reminiscing on my journey with God, I realized that this moment in my life was again very special. Over the past couple of years, I have witnessed firsthand what can happen with the power of prayer and the commitment to one’s faith. As I see it, there must have been some point in this timeline when Suzanne was touched by God, just like all those who were afflicted and healed by Jesus in the Bible. What the two of us are expected to do with this now has yet to be revealed.

So for now, tomorrow on Easter morning, I’ll go to our church’s sunrise breakfast, participate in the Easter service, and head down to St Joseph for the Crider Easter meal, all this with my wife still by my side. A special day that I hope I can duplicate for many years to come.

The angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples: ‘He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him.’ Now I have told you.”

Matthew 28:5-7