Happy Easter

I was scared that today was going to just be April 12, 2009 for me. I have scheduled two lunches and zero church services. It did not really hit me until last night that I was not going to be in a church today for the first time in probably my entire life. Even when in Italy - we went to church on Easter (not understanding a word of the service). Instead of panicking now at 8:46am I sluggishly grabbed this book sitting next to my bed and dove into it this morning. I'm sharing this because it struck me - even more than some of my past Easter services in English...Reinventing my Easter Sunday from bed this morning:

Wide Awake by Erwin McManus
Chapter 3 - Adapt

"Many of us need reinvented lives. We are living a rerun and we need fresh stories, maybe some new characters to enter our story. When you get up in the morning, maybe you feel that your life is just a show waiting to be canceled, an endless rerun with worn out story lines and superficial characters. If you are going to engage in a journey with God, if you are going to follow the God who created you, if you're going to explore mysterious, dangerous, unknown, uncertain places - then you need to know how to reinvent yourself. You have to learn how to adapt."

Later on in the chapter

"When you face challenges and obstacles, you have to learn how to either overcome them or adapt to them. Wisdom guides you to the best choice. To adapt is not to surrender but to become unstoppable. It is the difference between being a boulder or a river. Many of us see virtue as being immovable.
Yet in times of crisis, it is our willingness to be adaptable that distinguishes us. Conviction is a popular excuse for rigidity, but faith should actually make us more pliable, not less.
What we find in all these invidivuals through whom God has written biblical history is that faith gives you the confidence to adapt to your circumstance while never compromising your convictions.
You either adapt when you face circumstances you cannot control, or you allow them to become the boundaries of your life. They will establish the parameters of your freedom, define your limits, and diminish your dreams - and that is where you stop. I may not know anything about you or your life journey, but I know this. You can't control the context from which your life story is being written, but you can control the content."

Whether or not this is your Easter or your April 12th, 2009. This is true.

And here's where I would like to stroll every single Easter Morning.