New Beginnings

I keep starting and restarting this blog. I want to blog. I feel led to blog. To offer hope to other moms. People that know me are not surprised that I have not kept this up well.

I have three unpublished blog posts. I'm not sure what I was waiting for. This is no way to run a blog. I'll try again.

It is the Easter season. Sort of. In liturgical calendars, it is the season of Lent. We've studied Lent a little in our homeschool. It isn't really something that we do in our faith heritage, so I am not by any means an expert or even experienced. But for the second year in a row, we have participated in Lent. We don't fast on Sundays. Not sure why I feel compelled to say that. It is funny what we will bicker and debate about. Does it matter? So many things we argue over don't really matter.

So there is that. We are giving up all drinks except water. I don't drink coffee every day, but I really, really enjoy it or hot spiced tea when it is cold. I hardly ever drink soda/pop (another thing we can argue about that doesn't matter at all!). Hubby is addicted to Diet Coke, though. The kids are more apt to drink chocolate milk or lemonade. We let the kids decide what we gave up this year. After much debate, they chose to give up all drinks except water. Chosen because it is easier than sugar, flour, eggs or chocolate. (We still celebrated Pancake Day!)

We did the same thing last year. Same discussion - which things are harder for which people. Drinks are equally hard for us all (except for daddy, who they are sure never drinks water!), but not too hard.

We THINK it is going to be easy. We THINK we don't normally drink much else besides water. The first few days we forget and remind each other. Then we go along and we all remember and we all accept it. We hardly even want anything except water. We get the hang of it and it goes smoothly. Then a Thursday comes and all of a sudden we don't get drinks when I get gas. We USUALLY get drinks. Someone asks before they remember. Oh! The misery. We don't even have water bottles in the car! ahhhh!

And then we go to Grandma's and they have juice or tea or ANYTHING but water.

And we finally, really, feel it. It isn't as easy as we thought. Again.

I teach children's worship (kids' praise is what we call it sometimes). We studied Jesus' Temptation in the Wilderness for a few weeks this year. Did you know that time in Jesus' life is what Lent symbolizes/celebrates/emulates? I tend to think of it as a kids' story, in simple terms. But there is SO MUCH in that story. Jesus would have been weak from hunger. He was way past hangry. I don't like to think of Jesus as desperate. But in reality, he was physically deprived. Literally starving. And then, he faced huge personal temptations from Satan. He went out into the desert to be tempted. Like Rocky heading into the fight of his life. Only his training was to make himself as physically weak as possible. I have heard this was to strengthen him later - he knew he had overcome before his earthly ministry began, so he knew he would overcome as his ministry on earth came to an end.

I don't pretend to understand why the Holy Spirit led him into the desert to be tempted by the devil. But, I do understand that Lent leads to Easter. My favorite holiday. Hands down. Better than Christmas, better than my birthday.

Easter is so significant.

In children's worship, we are using the month of March to look at Jesus' last days on earth. The kids don't know what Passion Week means, so we don't use that term. We stood with the crowds and shouted "Hosanna" yesterday. We inked their bare feet with stamp pads and they stepped on a large roll of brown craft paper - our path. We glued down palm leaves and wrote words of praise on the path.

This coming week we will talk about Jesus in the temple. When we arrive the classroom will be in disarray. We will go to another room to begin making recycled paper then come back to see what my helper has discovered about the room (it was in disarray to remind us how Jesus threw the salesmen and animals out of the temple). Then we will hear Jesus' prophecy about rebuilding the temple in three days. We will tear up construction paper temples and go back to our paper that has been drip-drying. We will add torn up construction paper fro the temples and seeds and beads to make a reminder of the temple on our paper. We will leave it to dry until next week.

The second week we will look at our (now dry) paper and see how beautiful our designs turned out. We will use the paper to make a Jesus paper doll. We will cut out circles for Jesus' face and glue them to a popsicle stick with a small stick across that one for the arms. One side will be a happy face and one side will be a sad face. As we talk about the events leading up to the Crucifixion, we will talk about which things made him happy and which made him sad. We will leave our Jesus paper dolls in class until the next week.

The third week we will talk about the Crucifixion, how Jesus knew he was going to his death, but he did it anyway. We will talk about death and how it makes us feel, and heaven. We will bury our Jesus paper dolls upside down in some beautiful copper-looking planters. This will leave the popsicle sticks upside down in the dirt, looking like a cross. We will leave them at the church until the next week, Easter. Over the week, I will water the pots and put them in a sunny spot. (I will have others water them when I am not in the building.) Hopefully, the seeds will sprout and we will have some new life to look at on Easter Sunday!

On Easter, we will celebrate the Resurrection and new life. We will talk about the promises Jesus made and how we can be with him forever.

Are you participating in Lent?
What will you be teaching this Easter?