The Ideal Easter Garment By Ada Nicholson Brownell

                             

                                            The Ideal Easter Garment

                                          By Ada Nicholson Brownell

The dress was a frilly pink child’s size 4. The layers of nylon and lace glistened as the skirt flared around her tiny waist. White patent leather shoes and white lacy ankle sox completed the outfit. Her hair curled around the white hat and framed our 4-year-old daughter’s beaming face.

Carolyn twirled in front of the mirror. “I like my dress!”

Gary, her brother, clothed in a navy blue three- piece suit and tie, stood like a little man at age 7, his blond hair parted and combed in place.

“I’m ready.”

Gary and Carolyn wore those Easter clothes on Sunday all summer. A photographer snapped portraits of them wearing the outfits. For years, no matter how they grew, I displayed those pictures of them looking so pretty and handsome.

We added more children to our brood, and always on Easter I enjoyed buying the tiny suits, the frilly dresses and the patent leather shoes. I still enjoy going the children’s clothing stores shopping for grandchildren, although lacy dresses aren’t as poufy and little boys usually don’t wear three-piece suits.

Yet, God’s Word taught me the best garment any of us will wear will be a robe of righteousness. It will be the greatest outfit I’ll ever wear, too.

Helping children find the way to wear righteousness doesn’t just happen. Because each person chooses whether to wear this garment, all I could do was show how to receive it. I knew from observing and studying scripture it would be a challenge and I needed to work at it.

Most of all, it required that I demonstrate serving God is the most important thing in life, so our lives revolves around serving God and church.

I wasn’t perfect. When you have five children spilling milk, crying, sometimes fighting, not doing their chores, working at piano and instrument practice, the stereo or the TV blaring, and my husband often gone working shifts at the railroad, sometimes the chaos obliterated my patience.

I’m sure I’d change things about my parenting if I could, but one thing I wouldn’t change is helping them to know how to be clothed with righteousness because they all dedicated their lives to the Lord.

When Carolyn passed away at age 31 from an aggressive form of lymphoma, that robe was more important than any little Easter dress. She wore the garment when she was brought into the presence of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, who because of His death on the cross, chose it and paid for it Himself.

At Easter, memories sometimes bring back the frilly dresses and tiny little suits. My heart squeezes thinking about our children decked out to celebrate Easter. But a great celebration is coming in heaven that I pray we, every child, and every grandchild attends, properly dressed for the occasion.

Jesus told John in his vision, “They will walk with me in white, for they are worthy. All who are victorious will be clothed in white. I will never erase their names from the Book of Life, but I will announce before my Father and his angels that they are mine“(Rev. 3:4-5NLT).

What an Easter parade!

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PEACH BLOSSOM RANCHER 
Book Two in the Peaches and Dreams series
Historical Romance by Ada Brownell
Sequel to The Lady Fugitive

A handsome young man inherits a ranch in ruin and a brilliant doctor finds himself confined to an insane asylum because of one seizure. Yet their lives intersect. Will they achieve their dreams?
John Lincoln Parks has two goals: Restore the Colorado peach and horse ranch to its former glory, and marry elegant Valerie MacDougal, a young widow and law school graduate. A stranger about to give birth in his barn, a murderer on the loose, a feisty female neighbor who thinks she’s in love with him, a sheriff, and a determined attorney interrupt his intentions.
At the same time, Dr. Dillon Haskill desperately hopes for release from the asylum for the insane, and he wants to take with him Pete, a ten-year-old victim of Down’s Syndrome, and Jim Cook, a teacher, paralyzed in a logging accident. But asylum dignitaries believe these patients are either lunatics or demon possessed.
An intriguing story wrapped around inspiration, suspense, humor, and characters you’ll love.

Ada Brownell is the author of seven books. She has written for Christian publications since age 15 and spent much of her life as a reporter for The Pueblo Chieftain in Colo.

A freckled redhead, in high school she won best actress in a one-act play contest and judges told her she should go to Hollywood as a comedienne. Instead, she became a wife, mother, writer and a veteran youth Christian education teacher. Most of her life Ada sang in Christian gospel groups, including the Damascus Singers and Praise Trio. She is a member of American Christian Fiction Writers and Ozarks Chapter of American Christian Writers.

She and her husband have five children, one in heaven, eight grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

Read sample chapters of her books on Amazon. Or listen to a chapter of Imagine the Future You on Audible.com. Her Amazon author page is https://smile.amazon.com/author/adabrownell

Blog: http://inkfromanearthenvessel.blogspot.com Stick-to-Your-Soul Encouragement
Ada Brownell Amazon Author page http://smile.amazon.com/-/e/B001KJ2C06