March update
(this letter is available as a .pdf here)
Welcome spring! Whether you are actually experiencing spring-like weather or not, it really is here, and with it comes all kinds of changes and things to celebrate. Our windows here at home are covered with brightly colored Easter egg clings and plastic eggs are littering the house (I even found one under our dresser—Anja really likes egg hunts).
We are looking forward to remembering the sacrifice our Lord, Jesus, made for us when He took our place, bore the weight of our sins, and suffered the punishment we’ve earned. That’s love! To be willing to go to such lengths to satisfy God’s need for justice and fulfill His desire to have a relationship with us again. Words like grace and mercy used to be just church words to me, but now they mean so much. While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us! Grace means being given something I haven’t earned, and I sure didn’t deserve to have God suffer in my place. So we can respond with our hearts this Easter when we say, “He is risen. He is risen indeed!”
We also had a celebration of our own last weekend when we had Anja baptized. She asked Jesus into her heart last year, but we wanted to watch her and see if she meant it, and we have thoroughly enjoyed watching our daughter grown in the Lord over the last year. So we talked about how baptism is a way we can obey God by sharing with others that we believe Jesus and how the water is a symbol of God washing away all our sin and making us new people. It was a really special day for all of us.
