Easter has hopped around again, with bunnies and candy and fluffy little chicks. It’s also spring break for lots of schools, but don’t let the week of fun overshadow what makes this week special: it’s Holy Week, the week between Palm Sunday and Easter.

One of my favorite chapters in all the Bible is Psalm 139, that wonderful Pslam of David praising God for knowing us so intimately before we were even born. No matter how many times I read or study it, certain verses always jump off the page:

O Lord, you have searched me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. … You are familiar with all my ways (vs. 1-3).

For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. … All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be (vs. 13-16).

Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting (vs. 23-24).

This might not seem like it ties in with Easter, but it actually does.

You see, God knows us better than we know ourselves. He knows the sins we hide from others, the countless times we fall short, the insecurities and fears and impatience. And yet He loves us anyway — so much that He sent His Son Jesus to be our Savior and take our place on the cross.

Thank you, Father, for sending your Son, and thank you, Jesus, for coming to earth and dying for us. May we never forget that love and sacrifice, and may a new awareness of it make this Holy Week and Easter one of our most precious.