Our small hospital does offer at least one benefit when you have a baby there: the congratulatory dinner.  They have a woman who caters a dinner, and the nurses give you a choice if you want baby to join in or be babysat at the nurse’s station to give mom and dad a “date”.  Although the setting is in the hospital, they take you down to a special room that overlooks the city, and we’re not talking about hospital food!  This is gourmet, delicious, and for dessert, a cake to celebrate baby’s arrival.  The dinner was so good when we had my 21-month-old that I told my husband we have to take pictures next time because it was hard for our friends to believe that food this good existed in our small town.  But it does, and here are the pictures to prove it!  I only wish they sold it in the hospital cafeteria on a regular basis – now that would totally redefine the term “hospital food”!  By the way, those are giant shrimp in the picture that tasted like lobster; complete with a vat of butter for dipping.  And that isn’t a bottle of wine but sparkling grape juice, in case you were wondering why they would give a breastfeeding mom a bottle of wine 🙂 

I say Resurrection Day because the word Easter is used in reference to the spring celebration with eggs and easter bunnies.  Resurrection Day rather refers to the holiday we Christians celebrate at the same time, the resurrection of our Lord, Jesus Christ.  He was murdered on a cross by a reluctant Pilate at the insistence of the Jewish leaders who were blinded and could not see that He really was the Messiah they were waiting for as He came in humility rather than in power, to teach rather than to conquer.  There will come a day of course when He does finally come to destroy the ones who reject him and build a new Heaven and Earth for Him and His people, but for now we wait and celebrate what He has done so far in offering a way out of the darkness we call sin.  That He was resurrected shows all that He has victory even over death, what many think of as the final conclusion to ourselves.

First of course we must remember His death- His unfair trial, His suffering, and his being nailed to a cross in the most brutal form of execution know in those days.  Good Friday, as it is known except by school districts that now refer to it as a “non-attendance” day, is the day we remember this horrible death.  I of course have the bonus of it being a day-without-pay so I can really feel the suffering. 😛  Kidding of course, but it is a serious day.  Our church is actually doing something a little bit different this year.  We are still called to attend wearing black, but instead of a drama (I was in it 7 out of the last 8 years!) and a message it is apparently an open-ended service where we can come at any time within a 5-hour window.  More on this after Friday as I really don’t know anything more about it.

We are preparing for Easter with the choir and it is coming along nicely.  Of course tonight we will probably have a train wreck as we’re told to sing from memory- no sheet music for us when we’re up there!  Of course the train wreck will be followed by further improvements as we improve in our confidence of the music and, just as important, will actually be looking at the choir director instead of the music! 😀  And once it’s over, a week of (unpaid) rest follows…