a true story, I don't have time.

Can I get Hallmarky with you for a minute? 
I think something I'm realizing is that the more you thank the Lord for your blessings, the more overwhelmingly blessed you feel. 

This year, for Easter, all I wanted to do was just really whole heartedly praise Him for what He did for me. And even in that desire, I knew it wasn't possible. I knew I couldn't actually muster up some sort of complete and pure praise of what, the whole cross? All of salvation? It's like the sunniest day that we've ever known and all we can do is squint and see the tiniest amount of light. My heart is squinting and knowing, "wow - I'm saved. Christ died for me. While I was still a sinner." And that one ray of light that eeks in behind the guard of my shading fingers and eyelashes and mostly-closed squint, and it stuns me. 

But somewhere during the week last week, I felt this charge to throw off what was hindering me and CELEBRATE. Easier said than done. I started over about 129 times. 
But each time I reminded myself, "Christ DIED for me." "I have been saved from death, from meaninglessness, from terror, from depression, from despair, from myself, from insanity...." or even, "Christ loves me. Just me. As I am.", those thoughts changed everything. 

I started thinking about that line from the John Mark song, "I don't have time to maintain these regrets when I think about... the way, He loves me...". And it's so true and so trite. 
Him alone. Is enough. But I'm finding when I count Him enough. 
He shows me all the other things. 

So this weekend was filled with much praise. 
And easter egg hunting. And food. And a datenight with the most handsome man I know. 
And thrift shopping. And beautiful conversations. And dreaming. 
And worship. And watching baptisms of the saints with my precious church. 
And ugly crying through praise. 


And girl, you know it was filled with other stuff. 
Headaches, fears, sadness, life. Pain, flesh, this world. 
But I don't have time. 
I don't have time to maintain those regrets. 
Haven't you heard? 
Jesus gave me new life. 

awake my soul, some Easter gifts for you

A. I'm going to take the morning to read through all the comments from Glory's post on Tuesday. I had to stop reading them that day cause I was crying my eyes out. I wrote that on Monday night and Tuesday I woke up humbled, humbled, humbled. Thank you for your emails too. It is a mind blowing thing to us that the God who saves and rescues our souls also can rescue our bodies and we can share those stories - the soul rescue-ing and the body rescue-ing and people can be encouraged and drawn to Him.
So thanks, for praising Him with us.


B. My heart is super anticipatory about Easter. Yours, too?
I always feel like this is our superbowl! Our anniversary-ish of Christ coming for us while we still enemies of Him and defeating the sin and death that entangles the ones He died for.
You know one thing I think about Jesus - when I picture Him living that week before His death and resurrection, I'm reminded He's not like us. He wasn't all in the moment and caught up in it all. He had an eternal view of what was coming in His own life and ALL OF OUR LIVES for the rest of eternity.
So I don't want to be caught up in the everyday this week.
I want to take my eyes off the temporal and ask Him to help me shift them to eternal.


C. I have a little Easter gift for you!
I wanted to make a few prints with some simple worship lyrics that could be displayed around Easter and I was wondering if you would too!
So here are some free Easter-worship-printables for you!
You can't right click the photos, but click the links and you can download high resolution pdfs of all these prints. Enjoy friends!


Oh Praise the One Christ is Risen Awake My Soul





Happy Almost Easter, friends! 

slowing down & gearing up

It's one of those sweeeeeet Mondays. 

Resting from an (awesomely) exhausting weekend, doing laundry and being lazy. 

Gearing up for a full week ahead, prepping our lives for the Tues-Friday. 

Ahead of us we have about a zillion loads of laundry, two playdates, family meals, SIX MORE workouts till our next p90x rest day (blerg), and some fun mingled community things in there. 

I love these Mondays. 

I'm soaking it up. 

Coming fresh off of celebrating the resurrection makes everything better too. 

Here are some iphone & stolen pics from our weekend. 

(obnoxious amount of pics ahead)

started with an egg hunt/bday party at Nonny's in Charleston

our hunkle Josh may or may not be turning an age that makes him MUCH closer to Jesus:)

I wore my new favorite vintage muumuu. (thanks Seattle girls) Nick made lots of "golden girls" jokes. 

benja & glor loved on baby Asher and my sister tried to convince me to even out our families. Sorry, Rubes.

I finally gave in & let my Mom buy our kids matching Southern-ish Easter outfits. This is the best shot we got. 

but we did get a good shot of THESE ladies & their easter outfits. Love them. 

and a whole family/silly Ruby shot. 

NC and I went on our first post-epilepsy date thanks to my Mom & I found my vintage dvf collared shirt at my mom's house. It is the perfect shirt. 

the next day we hightailed it to Columbia for church at Riverside & a sweet Riverside family brunch. Love our church.

Annnnnnd, that was it. 

Insert a whole-family-two-hour-nap on Sunday and that's our weekend in a nutshell. 

If you made it through all those pics, here is a bonus for you:

Jami at Call Me Blessed is having a Naptime Diaries shop giveaway today! 

Annnnnd, I added three new prints to the shop this morning so check those out too!

Also, for the rest of the week I'm answering reader questions that have piled up in the formspring account, over there to the right ------> so if you have any, throw them in there! or in the comments or by email: jessi connolly at gmail. I promise I'm an expert at nothing and know very little about very little. But if there's a subject you want some vulnerability about, I'm your girl. 

Hope ya'll are having one of those sweet Mondays. 

what easter means to me, my dear

table all ready for our "family easter celebration"

This is what Easter means to me this year, my dear. 

We talk about the gospel a lot in our family, in our church, in this christian life. Easter this years feels like the most real celebration of the gospel - all of it, the good & the bad. The bad and the good. 

It's Good Friday today, and there's the bad. The victorious, but oh-so-good-bad news. 

Jesus died on a cross for my sin. For my inadequacy. As bad as I think my sin is, it's worse. As bad as I imagine myself to be, I'm worse. This year, I'd say I lived that. Just when I thought I'd seen the depths of my own humanity and fallenness, I found more. Just when I thought it was time to pick myself up by the bootstraps and finally be a good me, I'd fall again. What hard bad and what beautiful bad I found in the gospel this year. 

feeling spicy in my apron.

And the good news, that Jesus rose. That He victoriously defeated the sin that entraps me. He defeated the ME part of me so that He could step in and save the day. Whatever I find, whenever I find it, He's redeemed it. Renewed it. That the parts of me that feel unloveable and unusable and broken are created, cherished, and healed by Him alone. That he power of the cross is in ME, for His will and His glory, and my enjoyment. 

And that space, at the end of the day - where I realize today I lived the bad news of the gospel and I have an ultimate choice. I can compare myself to others and accordingly pride or shame myself based on the comparison. I can appease myself with a piece of His truth, a part of His gospel - without diving fulling into what He has. I can turn off my heart and ignore the cry that their must be something more. Or I can just surrender, trade in bit by bit my chunks of weakness for the undeserved strength that He pours over me. Purify and enliven my own heart with the blood that my sin caused to shed. With no ability to repay or provide restitution. Easter is about loving and living 2 Corinthians 12:9. More and more each day. 

bad pic, but I want everyone to see how much Glor loves Nick. She pets him constantly as he reads the Bible:) 

But instead to feel the weight of the bad news & the good. All at once. 

The weight and power of the cross, with the victory, grace, and confidence of the cross. 

All with me, calming and loving and enveloping me in the spaces of quiet. 

Well, the loud ones too. 

but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Romans 5:8

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

2 Corinthians 12:9

According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading...

1 Peter 1:3&4

thinking on easter

Birthdays are nice and mother's day is special. 
Valentines is sweet & halloween sure is great for being missional. 
Christmas is beautiful & the birth of our savior, but Easter. 
Easter is just something. 


The tomb is EMPTY. We have a reason for hope past our own selves. 
If you're me, if you're you - that is some good news. 


I want to teach our kids to party hard on Easter. If ever, ever, ever there was reason to celebrate - it's easter. This year, we're going as all-out as we possibly can with a 2,3,&4 year old and coming off a mini family crisis. This whole week we're talking about how Christ died for us and next week we'll get to the good news - that He conquered the grave. We're trading out our "happy birthday" pennant for a "christ is risen" one, and speaking of Christ is Risen - I'm doing lots of listening to this song. Favorite worship song, ever.

modcloth dress, we heart it, 

etsy boys bowtie, easter cake pops

etsy onesie, easter pennant, 

etsy headband, & another dress

Dying eggs, easter pennants, scouring thrift stores for a dress, cake pops, maybe a special headband for mama & Glory, bowties for the boys, visiting family, maybe some family worship on the beach, praying for our kiddos salvation, and I'm sure - just sure there will be some food celebrating in there. 


If ever there was reason to celebrate, right? 
Christ is risen, Amen?!