Thoughts on Easter Sunday

So first off, I should mention that it's the last day of Lent. What I did for Lent this year was basically tell myself to entirely rely upon God and prayer to heal my stomach - and to stay away from any strong medicines. I prayed to find a healthier cure - be it spiritual or something that I can consume. And God did answer! I'm usually lactose intolerant (just one of the many problems wrong with my stomach) but I can sometimes eat yogurt and ice cream and cheese and stuff, but only to a certain extent. When my stomach problems started (again) last December, my sister actually suggested that I try some yogurt (probiotic, perhaps) like Activia or something - but I didn't really take her opinion because eating yogurt would probably damage my stomach even more. However, I just decided to give it a shot during one of those many times I went with my friends to eat Pinkberry (also probiotic yogurt) - without eating my herbal medicine afterwards. The next day, I was completely fine. I then discovered that eating this probiotic type of yogurt actually helps my stomach so, so much - and I don't get any side effects from it even though it is a dairy product. So praise the Lord for that! I now have loads and loads of Activia in my refrigerator.

I won't go into too much detail of what happened on Good Friday (two days ago), but all I would say is that it's pretty ironic in terms of what usually happens in this world. Being a Christian, though, what happened on Good Friday is seriously some kind of sign from God. The way this home functions is going to change, the mindsets of my sister and I are going to have to change, I have to begin setting my priorities straight again - stuff like that. As I've said before, I'm literally hanging on a thread here in terms of my relationship with God. One of the only things keeping me persistent is that I absolutely cannot deny His existence especially when I've actually seen Him at work - like what has happened recently. So to basically get back at death - I need to refocus my life in glorifying God and not get myself caught up in worldly things.

During today's sermon, I kept thinking about my decision to come to Valley Church. Granted, the people there are so, so much more friendlier than the church I grew up in and the services are carried out a lot more professionally and they're a lot more applicable to my life as well. I haven't visited my old church for... about ten months. I guess I stopped going there to avoid an unpleasant past, and my patience to deal with people of my own culture began to significantly diminish. But I'm curious of what it would be like if I just went to visit another Sunday sermon again. Personally, I felt that there were some pastors who didn't really care about giving sermons and they just began rambling about the most random things and no one really started paying attention anymore. But there are good pastors there as well. I honestly don't know how the people there are anymore because they've probably changed and I've definitely changed since the last time I attended my old church. It's just not spiritually healthy for me to continue going to Valley church by myself because one of the most important things about going to a church is to constantly be in fellowship with other Christians - something I do probably like... once every two months now.

And because of what has happened this weekend, I think I might just visit my old church next week. If I honestly can't bear being there again, worst case is I'll just go back to Valley Church again. The main reason I have this feeling to return back to my own church is because I felt I was closer to God when I was there than I am here. Here, I simply sit down, worship, hear a sermon, and leave. Back at my old church was when I had all those "spiritual highs" and when I would actually understand Christians as people more because I actually had more chances to fellowship.

But on to actual thoughts of Easter itself! It's just real encouraging to me to know that death does not have a foothold in anyone's life. I also remember reading that while Jesus was on the cross, all His blood was drained away that He began to bleed water! That's just one of the many ways He was willing to suffer for us. That actually happened on Good Friday, though. I guess the eggs and bunnies are good ways for little children to get a sense of rebirth and resurrection. But I'm just always thankful of God anyways, whenever something goes wrong in my life and when I do something wrong in life - I'm thankful that He is provident and forgiving. Yeeah I don't actually have many thoughts for Easter - at the moment, at least. And I need to get a nice Easter photograph onto flickr so I should probably start on that.

Happy Easter, everyone!