Easter Egg Hunt Heaven

He walked up the steps, hitching up his pants as he moved to meet the pastor sitting on a stool at stage right. A big, burly young man with a beard, wearing pressed jeans and a plaid shirt, with a soft Louisiana accent, he stood anxiously as his pastor began to interview him. We were attending the spring musical at our friend’s church and in the middle of the music, a time was set aside for testimonies. Testimonies are a public way of saying what you believe based not just on what you know, but also on what you have experienced... heart, mind and soul laid bare to those who sit listening to you. Giving your public testimony is enough to make the strong quake in their boots, or high heels.
The pastor began to ask questions designed to help the young man tell us what he knew and what his experiences had been. His life had been consumed by drugs and alcohol. He, his wife and child moved here from Louisiana to live. His wife began attending church and her faithfulness brought him to God. This past year was his first sober year since he was a teen. He lost his job and had decided after months of searching and barely hanging on, to go back to Louisiana to work on an oil rig. Then a man he had called twelve times looking for work, called him and hired him two days before he was to leave. A miracle for him, a reason to believe God was taking care of him.
The words that stuck in my craw, however, were the words he used to describe himself as a child. An abusive home, a holy terror of a child... “I was the child everyone felt sorry for and no one wanted their child to play with.” My heart cracked wide open hearing those words and I wept for the little boy he had been. He has transcended his beginnings and now is part of the Family of God at his church, accepted and loved for who he was and now is.
Our Easter Egg Hunt is on Palm Sunday. For twelve years, we used the egg hunt as a way for church members and their children to come play on the farm. This year, we are no longer members of that congregation but we are still having the egg hunt. When I heard that young father’s testimony, I began to look for children like him to invite to the farm. I called Carolyn and asked her to invite the family Cat Square Church helped at Christmas. I am going to invite our neighbors who have a special needs child. I have already invited our neighbor’s grandchildren, mountain children with strong tap roots in Cutshall Town. I am going to ask Celeste to invite the young family from Moldova. I called Cara to invite her first grade class, children whose families are new to our country and children whose families struggle financially. I am going to go looking in the byways for those who have not been asked to sit at the table of grace and plenty, those who are new to this country, those who are outside the circle, and we will learn each other’s names, take a hay ride together, pet baby chickens, watch the children ride Junie B, laugh at the donkeys, hide and hunt Easter eggs, share a meal and celebrate our connections, not our differences. A little preview of heaven...
I believe God will be there, too, watching the children and the parents, taking pleasure in their joy and laughter. And I believe God is watching over the life of that little abused boy now grown into a loving father and husband, taking delight in the hatching transformation that happens when Love comes to life through the loving care of others. We are all little children in your sight, I know, but sometimes we forget those who are least among us. Remind us in this season of Lent to look for those children who need the loving touch of God in the midst of their loneliness and suffering. If there is another little child, a holy terror in our group on Sunday, please God, could we be a reflection of your loving kindness for them? Thank you for Sabbath Rest Farm, for its daily gifts of laughter and love, and for the opportunity to share it with others.