it is finished.

"when Jesus had received the sour wine, he said,

'it is finished,'

and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit."

john 19:30

there is nothing left to be done, it is finished. God's wrath has been satisfied. every sin of every person to have lived in past, living in the present (time of Jesus' crucifixion), and to live in the future has been forgiven. there was no other way to complete it; there is nothing left to be completed. it is finished.

i don't know if i always live as if it is finished. obviously the completion of atonement doesn't mean that i no longer sin, that i have been made perfect. i fall short each and every day, multiple times a day. my awareness of this, my need to "fix" things, and my independent nature leads me to try to receive further forgiveness. i don't think i do it consciously - sin, realize my mistakes, and do something good to make up for it. it is below the surface. but there is nothing i can do to make it more finished. that wasn't part of God's plan.

it is finished. life like it is. live in gratitude for the completion. live in recognition that we need Jesus as our Savior each and every day.

God created the world in six days and rested on the seventh, the sabbath. last night frank (pastor frank, to be more accurate) pointed out that Jesus rested on the seventh day too. his work was complete and on the seventh day he rested. today - the day in between good friday and easter - was a day of rest. His last week on earth started with the Triumphal Entry on Palm Sunday. we don't have a day-by-day account of Jesus' "creation", but we can take what we have from the Gospels to know that Jesus last week on earth was full of teaching and preparing. it was more or less his last chance to teach his disciples and prepare them for their ministries.

Jesus washes their feet, an example that he wants them to follow, both literally and figuratively. live as servants. put others first. He gives them a "new" commandment: love one another. He explains that he is the way, the truth, and the life. He promises a helper, the Holy Spirit. He describes himself as the true vine, that we are branches of this true vine. our branches are to bear fruit (through the true vine) but our branches need pruning. He warns them of persecution and being hated by the world. He tries to explain as best as possible, without just spelling it out for them, what is about to happen. He tells them that sorrow will turn to joy. He prays. Jesus, the Savior of the world, prays in submission to His Father. "glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you' (john 17:1). He breaks bread with His disciples, establishing a tradition to celebrate until we eat and drink with Him one day in Heaven.

as his time draws nearer, Jesus prays again in the Garden of Gethsemane. his time comes and Jesus experiences the ultimate betrayal. judas, one of the twelve disciples that he has been loving and teaching and guiding for several years now, betrays him and hands him over. judas betrays him in leading the soldiers, chief priests and pharisees to him, but Jesus offers himself voluntarily.

good friday. a culmination of events that are hard to imagine, hard to watch depictions (in movies such as 'the passion of the Christ'). Jesus suffers immense physical pain and torture. but we cannot forget the emotional and spiritual pain he suffers. betrayal. denial of another disciple. separation from His Father, forsaken.

all for love. for love of God's will and for love of His people. for love of me.

after all of this, he rests.

can you imagine what was going through the minds of His disciples on this day? can you imagine what His mother felt? although they had been told many times, did they really understand what the next day would bring? did they hold out hope for the 8th day?

'love never fails...and now these three remain: faith, hope and love. but the greatest of these is love.' (1 corinthians 13:8a, 13)

'we love because He first loved us.' (1 john 4:19)

these are a few of my favorite things...

i have to confess that these photos were not taken this season, or even this spring. i think they are from the fall actually - a day when kate and i took the boys (more like she took the boys and me) to the glen rock arboretum. she already had her new camera at that point so she handed off her old one for me to start using and "practicing" (i say practicing because she and adam generously gave it to jay and i for christmas).

but these photos do represent something that i do love - the outdoors. nature. plants. perennials, shrubs and trees. i love being among them, i loved selling them, i love designing their perfect spots and locations in a landscape.

it makes sense, then, that i would use this love and turn it into a career...or soon to be. jay and i are working towards developing a landscape design company. it is all very exciting. i have been playing around and practicing using the program i will design with - dynascape. dynascape design, dynascape color, and eventually dynascape sketch 3D. that is right folks. soon you will be able to see my designs in a 3D format. (i guess that is really just 2D until it is an actual landscape)

i am very excited about this endeavor. alongside this endeavor i am also beginning a new job. i have been unemployed for just over 17 months and now i am stepping back into the work world. i will be employed by paul keys associates doing very similar work to my past job, except that it is landscape exclusive.

new endeavors. new stages in life. new schedules and routines (not to mention that i will have to be in tenafly by about 7:15am). it is all new to me, which could and can be scary at times, but i won't let the unknowns and fears take hold. it is new, but God is still the same. He is faithful. He is present. He goes with me and before me.

sanctification:

- "the state of growing in divine grace"

it was good? can you imagine what our once perfect and sinless creation looked like? the beauty of blooming spring flowers certainly provides an allusion to eden, but it isn't the real deal. it isn't the "very good" creation that God made. this isn't what God intended.

forget creation. look at us - look at me, look at you, look around. we aren't what God intended either.

just like flowering spring trees provides an allusion of the good that was intended, we can occasionally sprout some things that resemble "good". but i am far from what God intended of me.

sanctification. sanctification provides hope for me, for you, for us. although we are currently justified, we will also one day be completely sanctified. i long for that day.

all this earth

could all that is lost ever be found

could a garden come up from this ground at all

you make beautiful things

you make beautiful things out of dust

you make beautiful things

you make beautiful things out of us

all around

hope is springing up from this old ground

out of chaos life is being found in You

(gungor - beautiful things)

God intended me to be beautiful, but i am not beautiful today. one day, though.

p.s.

my apologies for all of the wordy and boring, photo-less blogs lately. it's a shame because jay and i were actually generously given a very nice camera for christmas (thank you, culps) and i haven't used it since costa rica...nor have i downloaded the photos to my computer yet. lazy? i didn't think so, but maybe! partly also due to the fact that i have left my computer to my parents temporarily while they deal with their computer issues. i promise, i will get some good photos on here soon enough!

until then, just deal.

psalm 1

"blessed is the one

who does not walk in step with the wicked

or stand in the way that sinners take

or sit in the company of mockers,

but whose delight is in the law of the Lord,

and who meditates on his law day and night.

that person is like a tree planted by streams of water,

which yields its fruit in season

and whose leaf does not wither -

whatever they do prospers.

not so the wicked!

they are like chaff

that the wind blows away.

therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgement,

nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.

for the Lord watches over the way of the righteous,

but the way of the wicked leads to destruction."

psalm 1

when the forsythia blooms...

jay thinks that it should be a title of a book, when the forsythia blooms. instead i use it for the title of the post but cannot claim to be the originator of the phrase. i just like it.

summer was most likely my favorite season growing up as a kid for obvious reasons - off from school. even when you are no longer enrolled in any sort of education, summer still has its draws. there is something about it that feels a bit more relaxing. even when i was working and my sisters (both teachers at various points) were off for the summer i still felt much of the summer vibe.

but over the past few years i have discovered my love of spring. i think it probably started in college. i went to school in michigan - grand rapids, michigan to be exact. i am not sure if it is an accurate claim but much of the dreary and depressing weather of grand rapids from october-may is blamed on the "lake effect". or maybe that is just what all of the snow is explained by. regardless, grand rapids is a pretty gloomy place, in terms of weather, from what i remember lasting from mid-october till just about the beginning of may. i don't think i am exaggerating too much. the winter felt very long even when it wasn't snowing. i became aware of seasonal affective disorder in psychology and it quickly made sense to me - i felt down because of the lack of sun and green nature.

then spring came. commons lawn regained its lush, dark green color. the tulips (this is the land of the dutch, you know) bloomed. trees budded leaves and flowers. the sky more frequently rid itself of gloomy clouds and let the sun shine through its blueness. spring came and my spirits were renewed.

i believe my first post-college job at the nursery further developed my love of spring. partly because i loved returning from a winter of unemployment (the bittersweet reality of seasonal work) and getting back to work in mid-march. but also, we received delivery after delivery of beautiful, sweet-smelling, colorful plants. star magnolias, kwanzan cherries, chinese dogwoods. azaleas, lilacs, andromeda. and of course, forsythia.

as i drive around now, or on bike rides or walks, i notice the increasing colors. i take in the scents of spring. especially today, walking through the hundreds of cherry trees (many of which have started to bloom), i notice my mood shift. i start to walk a bit lighter. i hold my head up more often. yes, i feel myself become more "jill"...when the forsythia blooms.

self-checkout

unless i have a shopping cart full of items (and by "full" i mean, more than 15 individual items), and so long as it is offered, i always use self-checkout at stores. part of me loves the role of the cashier - moving things down the conveyor belt...which doesn't really exist on the self-checkouts, but i can pretend...finding the bar code on an item and scanning it, bagging it strategically so that nothing gets damaged or spoiled. when we were young we had a toy cash register that i just loved. i remember rummaging around the house for things to scan at the "store". part of me chooses the self-check out to be faster. but who am i kidding, it is never faster.

the majority of the time, my self-checkout register gives me enough problems to make the whole process unenjoyable and much longer than it needs to be or would be if i just went to a cashier. the worst is when you have a problem, it requires the help of an employee, and no one is anywhere to be found. then finally, minutes later, one shows up. they simply enter a code and the "problem" is solved. (mind you, there never was a problem - the machine just chose to act up even though i scanned the item properly and put it in a bag as required)

but sometimes i am reckless, in a rush, and don't follow instructions (i had this problem as a young elementary school student too). the other day i was purchasing a single item - parchment paper for my baked sweet potato fries to be placed on in the oven - and it took many minutes more then it should have. the scanning process went just fine. it was the purchasing that took time. i swiped my card, enter the pin number, and the screen just kept freezing on the authorizing screen. meanwhile the checkout screen said to wait for an attendant. like usual, the attendant was nowhere to be found. finally one appears for a few seconds, does something, tells me to use my card. right away i think, yea that is what i have been doing. but i figure he adjusted something to allow it to work. same thing. authorizing. wait for an attendant. the boy is long gone and no one else is around. i push the help button finally in desperation. a women comes by to help. she does the same thing as the first boy, only she continues to explaining to either scan my a&p card or hit the no button. this is what he meant by use my card. seeing as a have an a&p card on my key chain, i swipe away and proceed with success to checkout. if i had just gone to a cashier i probably would have been home already at this point.

there is one thing i forgot to mention. something i am quite proud of. i used to shy away from using self-checkout if i had a produce item to purchase. the thought of weighing it and knowing the code and such intimidated me. i no longer live with this fear. some stores provide a station in the produce section where you can enter the code, weigh it and a sticker will be printed that has a bar code for scanning. but at other locations i simply go to the self-checkout, place the item on the scanner to be weighed, and enter the product code number. if it isn't on a sticker on the item, i simply look it up. though to be honest, there is always a part of me that is afraid i might enter the wrong code and get undercharged and that suddenly some cashier or employ will come after me for the unpaid cents.