around here, we try to talk about Jesus a lot and help the kids to realize what holidays are really about. it's hard, especially when you walk around target every few weeks and all you see are decorations and giant signs marking the next holiday, even if it is months before the big day.
so, since right after valentines day, we have been talking about easter. (thanks for that target). which is good. if you ask the kids what Easter is about, they will most likely say: "Jesus died. and then He came back!" and then they will mention something about heaven. they are not sure what heaven is about, but we have explained to them that Jesus died so that we can go to heaven and be with Him one day.
on easter sunday, we went to church with our lovely friends, the hartmans. aka hobey and his family. they actually have started going to a church in tempe, which is SO great but we thought we would invite them to ours so that the kids could go to sunday school since the tempe church doesn't have that up and running yet. since i am not entirely sure what they think of the gospel, i listened to sunday's message as a 'non-believer'. and to be honest, it all sounds kinda hokey. someone loves me so much that they died for me? Jesus touched people with leprosy? who cares? i can do all things through someone who is going to give me strength? weird. God is full of comapssion? i don't believe it.
man! it was really easy to not believe! it's easy to disregard everything you hear at church as being a nice story from a really big book of stories, and that's it. but the thing of it is- it's all real. it's really real to me. so much so that i feed these stories to my kids and i pray that these stories transform the way my kids live their lives and give them hope in a pretty hopeless world.
i love easter. we definitely celebrate it in a very commercial way. we have an easter egg hunt at nana's and papa's and the kids love it so much. when we were getting in the car to go to barb's topher asked if we were going to heaven. we said we would one day, but not at this very second. he absorbed what we were saying to him and then he asked: "can we go to nana's house first? and then go to heaven?"
oh my boy! so precious. i just hope he realizes one day that heaven is actually better than going to nana's house for funtimes with the family and a bucket full of candy. although that sounds pretty good too.
hope you all had a wonderful easter. praise be to the One who loves, touches, heals, dies, and comes back!
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade—kept in heaven for you, 5 who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. 1 Peter 1:3-5
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