Happy Easter!!

I cannot believe that another Easter has come and gone!!!!  That was SO fast!  I feel like it was JUST Christmas!!!!  LOL!

My Easter was fabulous!  I feel so blessed right now!!!!!  My morning started very early because my sister had to be at church really early because she was in the service with her choir.  ;) 

OH MY WORD.  Church was insanely, incredibly and amazingly wonderful!  I could do a whole post JUST on church.  XD  But I'll just put it in with this post.  ;)  I'll go in order though.  No need to get ahead of myself....xD

As tradition states,  my sister's and I's Easter baskets outside the doors to our rooms, and we open them in the hallway.  ;) I was really excited with what I got.  XD  I /finally/ got my Rapunzel Barbie doll from Tangled, (yay!!!!) and I also got the Lemonade Mouth and Tangled soundtracks!!!!!!!!  I'm listening to Lemonade Mouth right now, and I LOVE THESE CDS!!!!!!!!!!  So addicting.  XDD  I also got LOTS OF CANDIES!!!!!!!  I <3 Candy.  Candy is the only reason I celebrate Halloween.  :P

My daddy made a delicious breakfast of french toast and pancakes, and then we (my sister and I) went out into our backyard to have our annual Easter egg hunt.  ;)  I got lots of Jelly Beans. 
Then my sister got dressed, and I checked Blogger and email a little bit.  ;)  I also downloaded my new CD's into my iTunes. 
I got dressed in my pretty yellow dress, my new high heel shoes, and I let my hair curl itself, and got ready for church!! 

(Me in front of the big building we had church at.  :)  oh my gosh, I just posted a picture of me.  :P  ACK!  I hope y'all like that pic.....LOL!) 


CHURCH WAS SO AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!  :D

I could practically FEEL the love for our God coming off in waves off the people there.  Everyone was so nice, and so supportive and just so.....AH!  It was awesome. 

You see, my church is a pretty big church.  It's out-of-the-box.  It's growing.  So, for this Easter, we went to the huge concert/arena place in town.  I'm going to call it the BAC (that's it's acronym anyway, but I don't want to give away too many details.  :P)

My sister was performing, so we had to leave early to go to the BAC, and my mom and I did How To Write A Story program while my dad took my sister back stage.  EVENTUALLY we went in, and met up with my dad's friend from work, who sat with us.  It was REALLY REALLY AWESOME!  :DD  Here's a picture of the BAC when it was filled up.  :)

Actually, this pic doesn't do it justice. :P  It was filled up even all the way in the top rows.  The WHOLE thing was filled with church goers.  :)

Then, the service started.  I had so much fun.  My mom and I were crying ten minutes into the service.  xD  The beginning music was AWESOME!  Lookie!  It's like a concert!!!

I love all the songs that they played.  I sang, raised my hands, and praised the Lord with my voice.  XD  Make a joyful noise.  LOL!

Then my sister ran out, jumped around with a flashlight, and ran off.  I screamed for her.  xD  She was awesome!!!!  They did a 'This Little Light Of Mine' remix.  It was so cool!  LOL!

My dad and sister came back, and the sermon started.  :)  It was really great.  I cried probably five or six times throughout the service.  :P  The ending is what really got to me. 

The pastor gave an old school Bible study this year, and he talked about a story in Luke 24.  :)
It was about this man: Cleopas.  Jesus (after he was Resurrected) came and walked and talked with Cleopas and his buddy Noname (no that's not REALLY his name, but it wasn't mentioned.  XD)  anyway, Cleopas and Noname were kinda  blind because they didn't recognize JESUS was walking with them.  They were chatting with Jesus about all the events that happened to the Son of God, and all this that and the other, and Cleopas schooled Jesus on Jesus!  Then our Paster gave a talk where he named where Jesus is mentioned in every single book of the Bible.  It was very impressive!  :)  The point of the story was that Cleopas had his chance to say yes to Jesus and live the rest of his life for him, but Cleopas missed his chance.  He lost his opportunity.  The pastor's message was all about not loosing out on this opportunity for an exchange.  A Beautiful Exchange. 

When you are saved, you die.  The old you dies.  A new Christ filled you is born.  You are given a beautiful exchange.  Your old sinful life is exchanged for a new, fresh and forgiven one.  :)
This song was played during a very moving video.  It showed very vividly just how the whole exchange thing works. 

There were people in the audience (who were staged) who were wearing grey t-shirts that said something on them.  Everything from "Divorced" to "Addict".  They were all sins.  There were videos about a bunch of the people, and it was so moving.  I cried.  There were TONS of them.  Even the pastor was wearing a shirt.  His said "Unworthy".  The song came to a crescendo and then these girls came and painted glow in the dark paint on the two lead singers.  It was EPIC.  Then, at the big belt-it-out-you-are-saved part of the song, everyone ripped off their shirts to reveal these white shirts with paint splatter looking designs on them, with a big heart in the middle that said "Beautiful Exchange" on it.  Then the lights went out and all the shirts glowed.  I got a shirt.  ;)

I cried so much during that service.  During that song, our pastor did an alter call.  ;)  SO many people were saved!!!!!!  It was amazing!  I cried then too.  So many lives were changed at that service, and you could tell!  I was amazed.  People from all over the auditorium came and were saved that morning.  :)  God is Good!!!!!!

Anyway, it was epic.  I was amazed to see how the Lord works thru our churches, and I realized how huge it is when your life is beautifully exchanged.  I feel blessed.  :)  I feel exchanged. 

After church, we went to grandma and grandpa's house for dinner.  It was very nice.  We ate steak, had fun, got candy (and a bracelet and itunes card!) and I played my viola for everyone!  :)  It was so much fun!!!!  Chibi, Nutmeg and I played outside for a while too.  Tradition.

That was my Easter.  :)  I hope you all had as great of an Easter as I did!!!!  :)

God Bless!

Love,