your Practice Resurrection photo stories [2015, vol. 3]

Scroll to the bottom of this post to see how to participate.

I'd love to include your photo story next week!

via: Lent & Beyond

For the next six weeks (from now until Pentecost), will you join me in feasting on Resurrection goodness in our everyday lives?  It can be as simple as a special candle you use for your meals during Eastertide or as elaborate as travelling across the world to meet new people.  

Whatever it is, will you show us a picture and tell us a few words?   Plant spring flowers (maybe a new variety this year)?  Show us! Get up to see the sun rise on a Sunday morning?  Tell us about it! Take a new route to work (maybe taking more time than necessary in honor of the mad farmer)?  Share it!

"Day in the Life: Living with Alzheimer's, my parents.  His mercies never come to an end ... they are new every morning."  (Caren Hoehner, Vienna, VA)

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"Sometimes seeds planted and neglected still produce something wondrous. It was such an amazing thing to go to my community garden plot yesterday after sadly neglecting it for weeks and find that, amidst the weeds, I had an actual harvest!  I had a bonafide ministry session with the Lord as I weeded." (Rebekah Powell, Austin, TX)

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"These pictures are taken in Skaneateles Lake, SE of Syracuse, NY.This is pristine water, the cleanest in New York. It is one of the 'Finger Lakes'. I believe these lakes were formed by glaciers after Noah's flood. That is a spring run rainbow trout. The moral of this story is that out of God's judgment there will always rise the purity and beauty of His new creation. (By the way, the bait I used was marshmellows and a worm)." (Douglas Hill, aka, my Dad, Johnson City, NY)

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"I read a line from John O'Donohue years ago that always comes to mind in the spring: 'beauty likes neglected places.' The damp earth under still-bare trees, untended corners of vacant lots - these places are splashed with new life and color, just as much as the carefully cultivated flower beds. This time of year, you can almost see the trees budding, watch the leaves uncurling, measure the progress of a rising daffodil stem from day to day.  Or -- just as often - a tree or shrub will lie dormant for months, then burst into bloom overnight. In both cases, the joy is deeper, the colors brighter, if you know where to look.""  (Katie Noah Gibson, Boston / follow Katie's blog: Cakes, Tea and Dreams for encouragement to pay attention to your everyday life.)

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"This photo speaks loudly to me how alive I feel as I offer my body as a living sacrifice, as I battle my flesh and worship the Lord while I step fast and sweat a little more. The hard parts aren't so hard when moving for Him and in Him."  (Patty Birchard, Endicott, NY)

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"We were just downgraded from the 'extreme' drought zone. And they had a blast out there." (Rosie at Like Mother, Like Daughter.  I just started linking up with these {pretty, happy, funny, real} posts as a way to "capture contentment in everyday life".)

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"When an infant or child is being marked with a sign of the cross during the liturgy of baptism, this moving section of liturgy accompanies the action:

'We receive Emmett into the congregation of Christ's flock, and mark him with the sign of the Cross, in token that form this time forwards he shall not be ashamed to confess the faith of Christ crucified, and courageously to fight under his banner against sin, the world and the devil; and to continue Christ's faithful soldier and servant until his life's end. Amen.'

It is both powerful and strange, when I consider the vulnerability and innocence of my toddler son, to speak of his fight against evil and even of the end of his precious life. Yet there is great mercy and profound joy when I remember that in this world where he will have trouble, his is held in the gentle, marked hands of the crucified Christ." (Shannon Coelho, Austin, TX )

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Three steps to play along:

1. Add something to your day that helps you practice resurrection. (one day or fifty days doesn't matter)
2. Take a picture and write a description in 1-50 words.
3. Share it with me via an email, Facebook or hashtag it on Twitter or Instagram #practiceresurrection2015.  I'll share some of your photo-stories with everyone here each week.

Who wants to join us?