EASTER MORNING DAWNS with the sunshine of God’s love. I believe this to be true.
I know that my Redeemer lives!
Have a blessed Easter, dear readers!
© Copyright 2024 Audrey Kletscher Helbling
Easter morning March 31, 2024
Easter memories of song, tattoos & faith April 9, 2023
IT IS MY ABSOLUTE favorite Easter hymn—“I Know that My Redeemer Lives.” And there is a reason behind that choice.
As a child, I sang that song with my Sunday School class during Easter worship services at St. John’s Lutheran Church in Vesta. Dressed in our Easter finery—girls in pastel dresses and Easter hats, boys in dress pants and shirts, some with bow ties cinching their necks—we belted out the joyful words about the risen Lord.
To this day, I can recite most of the verses. The words are that ingrained in my memory. Words of triumph, love, blessings, assurance and so much more. I feel my soul filling with Easter morning hope in the memories of singing that aged hymn.
I admittedly cannot carry a tune or read a single musical note. And I admit to a bit of fear on those long ago Easter mornings in rural southwestern Minnesota. Not fear about forgetting the words to a hymn. But rather a dislike of sitting in the St. John’s balcony with only a low, partial wall separating me from the sanctuary below. I never jostled for the front pew in that upstairs packed with kids.
I hold another memory from Easter morning. Not of danger, but rather of youthful disobedience. Mom asked my siblings and me not to tattoo our arms before church services. Of course, we didn’t listen and excitedly held washcloth to paper tattoos, imprinting temporary art (from Easter egg dyeing kits) onto our skin. In the end, I don’t think anyone really cared as long as we showed up to sing at church.
And so all these decades later, I remember my favorite hymn and how my faith has carried me through life. Through joyful moments, through ordinary days, through really difficult times…
He lives to bless me with his love.
He lives to help in time of need.
I know that my Redeemer lives!
A joyful Easter to all of you from my home in southern Minnesota, not from the balcony of St. John’s!
TELL ME: Do you have a favorite Easter hymn and/or memory? I’d like to hear.
© Copyright 2023 Audrey Kletscher Helbling
Easter joy in a song April 1, 2018
THE WORDS IN THIS HYMN are my most cherished of Easter songs. For these verses I sang as a child each Easter in the balcony of St. John’s Lutheran Church, Vesta, Minnesota.
Dressed in a new cotton Easter dress, feet strapped into shiny patent leather shoes, a hat streaming ribbons down my back, I sang with enthusiasm. I know that my Redeemer lives! Loud. Joyous. From the soul.
The imprint of this hymn remains with me decades later, far removed from the church of my youth. I can still sing the words from memory. I can still feel the stiff cotton of my new dress, hear the organ music rising and falling, smell the lingering scent of cows on myself and classmates, taste the sweetness of Easter candy upon my tongue, see the temporary Easter tattoos pressed upon my arm.
In this rural church, gathered with other farm families, I celebrated Easter. Today, decades later, in Trinity Lutheran Church 120 miles to the east, I know (still) that my Redeemer lives!
TO MY DEAR READERS, may you celebrate a joyous and blessed Easter!
Copyright 2018 Audrey Kletscher Helbling
I know that my Redeemer lives April 16, 2017
WE FILED INTO THE BALCONY of St. John’s Lutheran Church, Sunday School children clunking up the stairs in our shiny patent leather shoes. I felt a tinge of nervous energy fueled by too much chocolate taken from Easter baskets and eaten for breakfast.
My vintage 1960s purse, reclaimed years ago from my mom’s toy box.
I was dressed in my Easter finery—lacy anklets tucked into shiny shoes, lime green skirt skimming my knees below a sleeveless floral shirt accented by a matching lime green jacket. I carried a lime green purse. I looked as fashionable as a skinny Minnesota farm girl can in a homemade ensemble topped by an Easter hat with ribbons tailing down the back.
If my childhood Easter memories were nothing more than those of fashion and of candy, I would feel shallow and lacking in my faith. But I am thankful to have been raised in a home by loving Christian parents who got me to church every Sunday to learn of, praise and worship God. After the service, I clunked down the narrow basement stairs to Sunday School. And there I learned the song that, each Easter, I still sing from memory:
I know that my Redeemer lives! What comfort this sweet sentence gives! He lives, he lives, who once was dead; He lives my everliving head!
Art of the risen Lord photographed inside St. Mary’s Catholic Church, New Trier, Minnesota.
In the balcony of that rural Minnesota church, I sang with enthusiasm and joy of my Redeemer. Eight verses. The voices of farm girls and boys singing with such gusto. Every Easter. The words are still imprinted upon my memory more than 50 years later: I know that my Redeemer lives!
And I still sing them with joy.
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MY DEAREST READERS, may you be blessed with a joyous Easter.
© Copyright 2017 Audrey Kletscher Helbling
Minnesota Prairie Roots 
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