Celebrating Christ with PB&J

I ate peanut butter and jelly for Easter dinner.

Definitely far from the traditional Easter meal, and absolutely not what I'd had planned. I'd built up this wonderful, romantic idea of how my family was going to spend Easter, and I can say without hesitation that it absolutely did not happen that way.


In fact, pretty much all of my grand plans for how I was going to spend Lent didn't pan out.

• I thought I was going to write some really neat devotionals about Lent. I never did think of anything very profound to say. 
• I bought a great devotional book to read over Lent. Well, I did end up reading it, but a lot of days were more about checking it off my list than spending time with the Lord.
• I had a wonderful Bible study I was going to do with my girls. But soccer season started, and hubby was busy with work, so I was so busy managing daily life, that I ended up losing the book.
• My top-secret Lent project got some traction, but mostly, I did a lot of forgetting and wasn't as consistent as I'd hoped. 
• The wonderful Easter day of watching my daughter in the parade, going to the pancake breakfast, then having a lovely family picnic turned into parade, pancake breakfast, then collapsing from exhaustion and being too tired for anything else.
• The lovely Easter dinner of ham, macaroni salad, green bean casserole, and yummy strawberry cake ended up being PB&J. I'd intended to make the dinner. Even have the salad chilling in the fridge and the cake ready to be frosted. But some family friends wanted the girls to come over for a party at the last minute, so rather than cooking dinner, I had a quick sandwich.

Some would look at this list and see a list of failures. At many points in my life, I would too. But as I look at the list, I can't help but see a lot of my successes.

• I read a lot more than I would have, trying to research the perfect devotional. So even though I didn't write anything, I still feel like I gained a lot.
• Even though I didn't spend every day with the Lord, I did have more intentional time. And I read a great book that really blessed me!
• I did encourage my girls' spiritual growth, and the little bit we did was a lot better than nothing.
• I'm going to continue my top secret Lent project, but rather than forcing myself to find something every single day, I'm going to find opportunities as they arise. The project really blessed me, and I think it did some others too.
• We may not have done a lot for Easter day, but it was still a great day.
•  Ah, the glorious PB&J... As I ate my sandwich, I couldn't help but think that for some people, that simple dinner would be a feast, and way more delicious than what they've been eating. We're really spoiled to think that we need to stuff our faces with a fancy dinner to celebrate someone whose command to us was to "feed his sheep."

As you can see, it all works out in the end. Which is why I need to learn to stop making myself crazy over getting everything right. Easter wasn't ruined because none of the things I planned actually happened. In fact, I think it was the best Easter we've had.

How did your Easter/Lent ideas turn out?