(: Easter :)

Thanks for following, Shruti! :)

It's about eggs.

And candy.

Getting a new dress.

And looking fresh and springy.

It's about embracing new life.

And chicks.

Checking for the Easter bunny.

And getting sick from too much chocolate.

But what's it REALLY about?

I love eggs and candy and bunnies and dresses, but the real reason is somewhere else.

Easter is about love. It's about the biggest, deepest, strongest love there is. It's about someone who loves you more than anyone else in the world, someone who's crazy for you, someone who thinks you are to die for.

Literally.

No matter what you've done, Jesus loves you.

No seriously. Listen to me.

I didn't even understand this until a couple of years ago. I used to lie awake wondering why people had trouble getting it. "Jesus loves you," okay, cool, done. It's not that hard to get your mind around, people.

Then I started having trouble with pornography and other things along that line. It got really bad. It consumed me. I was not the person I had been. My mind was poisoned, every thought came with a bitter taste. I dreamed things I never should have thought about. I felt like there was literally something inside of me, eating me alive.

I hated myself. I hated myself so much that I didn't want to exist. It's not like I wanted to die, I just thought that if I couldn't be better than this, I wasn't worth living. Horrible thoughts and feelings choked me, suffocated me. I was the worst person I knew.

How could God love me?

For the first time, I started to understand how big that was. How could he love me? WHY would he love me? I didn't even love myself.

I'd ask him to help me time and time again, and he would. But then I'd just mess up again. I'd ask for forgiveness more times than I could count, but I'd just turn around and do the very same things again. I threw God's help in his face more than once. I'd decide he wasn't worth it, that I just wanted him out of my life, that I wanted him to leave me alone and let me enjoy doing the wrong thing.

My mind and soul felt black and destroyed, I felt disgusting. I was a bad person, I really was. How could God love me? HOW COULD HE LOVE ME? He couldn't. It was impossible. He didn't love me. He couldn't.

But for some reason that I can't even fathom, he did. He DID love me.

2000 years ago, he knew me. He knew EXACTLY what I would do, who I would become, and all the horrible things I'd give in to. HE KNEW. He knew I couldn't help myself on my own. He knew I would need help. And despite the fact that he knew I would become the worst person I knew...

He died for me anyway.

He was whipped, beaten, and mocked until he was unrecognizable as a person. He took blow for blow the most painful execution known to man. They didn't even have a word for that kind of pain. You know the word "excruciating"? "Ex," meaning "out of," "cruxio," meaning "cross." They had to invent that word to describe that kind of torment.

Jesus did that for ME. He loved me with a fierce, protective, gentle love. He loved me so much he would have done that if it had been only me. But it wasn't only me. He died for you too. He died for everyone, every single person.

No matter what we've done, it's never too much. We can never go too far, we can never be "too bad." Jesus knew what he was doing. He knew all the shit would do, he knew all the thoughts we would think. He knew that, and he died for it.

The penalty for our screw-ups is death, but Jesus loved us too much for that. He died instead. Instead of letting us take the unbearable burden of eternal death, he died for us so that when we die, it can be just the beginning.

That's what Easter means to me. It means that no matter what I do, or who I am, Jesus will always take me back. He loves me that much. I finally "get it," and yet I get the feeling that I'm only seeing the tip of the iceberg.

~Stephanie