Easter Week In

I had Easter week off work, which was nice. It's always nice to have a bit of a rest. So, what did I do?

Well, I also had Good Friday off (which is actually Holy Week, I know), and that was an interesting day with two main things that happened. The first was a meditative service, in which I had the opportunity to display a poem I wrote about Easter. I actually submitted two, but the other wasn't about Easter, so it was turned down - but if you want to read both, they can be found here. Anyway, the service itself was interesting, though different than it has been in the past few years. At least it felt different; it felt more like a 'normal' Sunday service, though that may just be my impression of it.
It was based around the seven last words from the cross, with various prayer stations around the church with different actions that could be done, and you could could go to as many or as few as you wished. I went to two: one which was about forgiveness, and one which was about giving God painful circumstances - the two were connected. Then we all came back together for a dance piece, and a short talk (yes, short) based around the last two words. What I got from it was that Jesus' surrender led to God's victory; so, if we surrender to Him, we can share in that victory. After that, they asked people to come up to the front if they wanted more of God's grace, so I went. Someone came and prayed with me, and I gave him the bare bones of the situation; at the end, he said it was important to remember that I am one of the good guys.

And then Saturday was pretty much a normal day, in that the shop was open as normal. And an abnormal day, in that we were really busy. We have been particularly quiet recently, so I can only put it down to the fact that we were closed on the Friday. Anyway, the day was pretty good, and I got a proper break. Which was nice. And then afterwards, I had to go look for Easter eggs; which was more difficult than you'd think because I was looking for fairly traded ones. Normally I would have done it before, but I was particularly busy this week, with the little matter of a wedding. And then I went to my mum's. I got there just in time to meet them on the way to church, and rescue Phoebe, who didn't really want to go to that service (well, she had been to every other one that week). And a nice evening was had by us playing games on our phones and tablet. Honestly, it was a nice evening.
And the next day was Easter!! To celebrate I went to church in the morning with them. Well, not with them exactly, as they got there early and I got there late; but I was there. It was a really nice service, and it had a happy feel; which was definitely appropriate. And I saw quite a few people who recognised me who hadn't seen me for a few years. We had a bit of a rushed lunch, as Phoebe had to go, and then I had a quick nap - apparently a genius idea. I got dropped back home shortly before church, and put up a post containing the poems I had offered, and then went to church for the second time that day. And again I arrived late.

And then began my week off - and mainly in. To start off with, on Monday I got ill, and was feeling pretty rough. I did go out that evening, as it was a friend's birthday, and I hadn't seen her for a while. I almost didn't make it out, as I didn't think I could do it; but God forced me, and it was definitely worth it. However, the next day and a half weren't at all good. I didn't sleep Monday night until about 6ish, so most of Tuesday was basically written off too.
Which meant I got up pretty late Wednesday, as well. So I didn't do that much, just a lot of reading. Until the evening, when I went out to a friend's to help her move house. And then we all went to a pub to join the rest of cluster in a social time. Which was nice.
Thursday was the first day I really spent a fair amount of time out of the house. I went to the library - what with all the reading, there was a fair few books to go back - and then to Starbucks, which I haven't been to for ages. Last year sometime, I think. I saw another friend I hadn't seen for ages there, so that was good. And then in the evening, I went to Hungry. I prayed for peace, as I definitely needed it. And I saw the friend whose birthday it was, and we had a good chat afterwards. Which was nice.
I didn't really do much Friday, but on asking if anyone was free at the weekend, I discovered a vegan fair at Gloucester Guildhall that a friend was going to be at. I hadn't seen her for pretty much a year, so that was a good chance to meet up with her - and meet her daughter. I figured that even a short time seeing her would be worth it, and in the end, we spent a good few hours chatting and just generally relaxing. Which was very nice.

So, all in all, the week off started off pretty badly, but there were some definite highlights in it. And I was feeling a lot more positive about things in general, even though I do have to go back to work in a couple of days.