BRIGHT SIDE ARCHIVES FROM AOL:

ON THE BRIGHT SIDE

APRIL 8TH, 2007

TODAY'S THOUGHT

The Easter feeling does not end.

It signals a new beginning,

Of nature, spring, and brand new life,

And friendship, peace, and giving.

The spirit of Easter is all about

Hope, love, and joyful living.

Author Unknown

TODAY’S ACTION

Recall some of the people who have profoundly influenced your life.

TODAY’S QUOTE

The story of Easter is the story of God's wonderful window of divine surprise.

Carl Knudsen

HAPPY SUNDAY

We had more snow on Saturday and are beginning to wonder if Spring will ever really be here. Surely it will warm up soon! I’m off to church and then home again to finish up many things here at my house.

Next Sunday is our family celebration and I have lots to do for that.

BrrrrChill ! It is cold here.

Happy Easter to you all ! It is truly a day of great rejoicing !!!

Have a great day all ! Another wonderful one on the Way !

Please pray for God's protection of our troops and HIS wisdom for their commanders.

Lord, hold our troops in your loving hands. Protect them as they protect us. Bless them and their families for the selfless acts they perform for us in our time of need. I ask this in the name of Jesus, our Lord and Savior.

25 WORDS

God, I thank You for today, for the ways You will bless me, and for the ways that I will serve others in Your name

TODAY IS…ZOO LOVERS DAY

It was about 1500 B.C. when Queen Hatshepsut of Egypt built the first zoo. Many private zoos were kept by rulers in Africa, India, and China between 1,000 and 400 B.C. - and a "school" zoo was built by the Greeks to study animal and plant life. But, modern zoos weren't deleveoped until the 1400's when European explorers came to the New World. When they took strange animals back home with them, public display zoos were born.

TODAY’S EASTERTRIVIA

From earliest times, and in most cultures, the egg signified rebirth and resurrection. The Egyptians buried eggs in their tombs. The Greeks placed eggs atop graves. Given as gifts by the ancient Greeks, Persians, and Chinese at their spring festivals, the egg also appears in pagan mythology, where we read of the Sun-Bird being hatched from the "World Egg".

The ancient Saxons celebrated the return of spring with a festival commemorating their goddess of offspring and of springtime — "Eastre" — through her earthly symbol, the rabbit. Eggs were wrapped with gilt or gold leaf, while peasants often dyed their eggs.

The tinting was achieved by boiling the eggs with certain flowers, leaves, log wood chips, or the cochineal insect. Spinach leaves or anemone petals were considered best for green; the bristly gorse blossom for yellow; and log wood for rich purple and the cochineal for scarlet.

In parts of Germany during the early 1880s, Easter eggs substituted for birth certificates. An egg was dyed a solidcolor, then a design, which included the recipient’s name and birth date, was etched into the shell with a needle or sharp tool.

Such Easter eggs were honored in law courts as evidence of identity and age. Decorating and coloring eggs for Easter was the custom in England during the middle ages. The household accounts of Edward I, for the year 1290, recorded an expenditure of eighteen pence for four hundred and fifty eggs to be gold-leafed and colored for Easter gifts.

Easter’s most valuable eggs were hand crafted in the 1880s. Made by the great goldsmith Peter Carl Faberge, they were commissioned by Czar Alexander III of Russia as gifts for his wife, Czarina Maria Feodorovna. The first Faberge egg, presented in 1886, measured two and a half inches long and had a deceptively simple exterior. Inside the white enamel shell, though, was a golden yolk, which when opened revealed a gold hen with ruby eyes. The hen itself could be opened, by lifting the beak, to expose a tiny diamond replica of the imperial crown.

TO LOOK AT THE FABERGE EGGS

Just click on the link below: http://users.vnet.net/schulman/Faberge/eggs.html

TODAY’S SMILE A father knelt down beside his little boy's bed. It was time for prayers, hugs and kisses, and tucking in. The little boy began the childhood prayer he had repeated so many times before:

Now I lay me down to sleep; I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake Pray the Lord, my soul to take. This time the words got mixed up. Unwittingly, the child spoke words of the greatest wisdom. He prayed, "If I should wake before I die." Embarrassed, he stopped. "Oh Daddy, I got all mixed up."

Wisely, his dad responded tenderly, "Not at all, Son, that's the first time the prayer was properly prayed. My deepest longing for you is that you make wake up before you die."

The child drifted to sleep, but the father turned the prophetic words about in his mind. "If I should wake before I die. That's it!" he exclaimed. "That's the promise and hope of Easter. This is the time to come alive and live forever!

Christmas is the Promise, and Easter is the Proof

TODAY’S WORD

Ceilometer

Ceil om e ter (noun)

A cloud yardstick. A ceilometer measures the height of clouds.

TODAY’S REFLECTION

Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved.

Mark 16:16

When the disciples woke that first Easter, their feeling was not relief. Perhaps on Saturday night they had finally fallen to sleep exhausted, hoping to escape the horror of the previous two days. But when Sunday came, they woke knowing the events were not merely a bad dream. Jesus had died.

Is it any wonder the disciples did not believe the women's report that Christ had risen? They knew that Jesus had been crucified. They knew he had been taken down from the cross and put into a t omb. But now the women claimed he was alive!

When Jesus appeared to the disciples, their joy must have been incredible. All their hopes, shattered two days before, were restored in an instant. Easter announces new life, resurrection, and restored hope for the world.

He lives! He is risen!

http://www.upperroom.org/devotional

TODAY’S ADVICE FROM THE OLD FARMER’S ALMANAC

Drinking sassafras tea will thin your blood in the spring.

74 DAYS UNTIL SUMMER !

Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your Heart

Psalm 37:4

I Love You All !!!

Be Blessed !!!

MY HOMEPAGE

I believe we should live ‘ON THE BRIGHT SIDE’

www.bigmarainey.com