Easter Garden

One of my favorite websites is A Holy Experience. I have found so much encouragement and many good ideas, especially for making the Easter season more meaningful. Last year the boys and I started making an Easter garden. But alas, the tomb we attempted to make was a flop and thus our garden never materialized. This year I was determined to make a garden. George and I picked out the plants then Pete (my gardener) and Tank helped me arrange and plant it and find the perfect rocks to use.

Another idea I found in a book that has become a favorite -- Treasuring God in Our Traditions by Noël Piper, is lighting candles as you would with Advent. But instead of the light getting brighter it grows darker as we draw near the death of God. While it is to be done over the period of lent with 7 Sundays we instead added candles to our garden and starting on Palm Sunday we lit all of the candles to signify Jesus riding into Jerusalem. Each day we will light one less until Good Friday when all is dark as the Light of the World was crucified. Easter morning the candles will all shine brightly as John 1:5 says "The light shines in darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it."