As a mother and a woman of faith, I am always trying to sneak Biblical truths into the hearts of my kiddos. We read Bible stories together before bed. We pray before meals and before bedtime. When someone makes a bad choice, we talk about what the Bible has to say about it. We have Bible verses on the walls of our home. Teaching my children about Jesus is a priority for me and I try to weave little lessons about Him throughout our days. But there are two times every year when I feel called to be much more intentional about it.
Two times every year, we celebrate holidays that are the very basis of our entire faith. At Christmas, we celebrate the humble birth of our Savior. And at Easter, we celebrate the life, death and resurrection of our Lord. These two holidays are central to the Christian faith. But both holidays are celebrated by non-Christians as well. Perhaps a little differently. But most people in our community participate in some kind of Christmas or Easter festivities, whether or not they celebrate them for the same reasons we do. You cannot go into a store this week without seeing bunnies, eggs, baskets, little bow ties and fancy dresses. My kids know that it’s Easter time because of the clues all around them. It’s my job to make sure they know why there IS an Easter.
So in an effort to teach my kids about why there’s Easter, I’ve done a few things. A few years back, we used a set of Resurrection Eggs. The eggs share the Easter story through a series of small symbols, each inside of a plastic egg. This year, my two oldest are really into coloring and making their own books. I thought it’d be appropriate to have them make their own Easter books. I’ll share some links for both of these teaching tools at the end of this post, but first I want to tell you a story.
Last year on Good Friday, my mother-in-law called to talk to the kids. When Mackenna, age 6 at the time, got on the phone, I could hear her grandmother ask her, “Mackenna do you know that today is Good Friday? Do you know why today is a special day?” And on the inside I started to freak out a little bit. Why? Because we hadn’t really been talking about Easter. Last year we didn’t do the Resurrection Eggs. I hadn’t really done anything to prepare her heart and mind for Good Friday last year. I had no idea how she would answer that question. And I know it wasn’t a test by any means, but if there’s anyone I’d want to be impressed with how much my children know about Easter, it’s my mother-in-law! In that moment, I felt guilty for not more intentionally teaching Easter. I felt ashamed that I had let such a huge Christian holiday pass without taking the opportunity to remind Mackenna of why we celebrate it! How would Mackenna answer? It had been a year since I last talked to her about the Easter story!
To my amazement, I listened to my daughter tell a VERY detailed account of Good Friday, what happened to Jesus leading up to it and what happened in the days that followed. She included details I had NEVER told her or read to her. I’m even her Sunday School teacher, so I knew what she had been learning in her class at church and knew that she had not been taught all of those Easter details she was now describing to her grandma. I sat on the floor of our kitchen hearing this beautiful telling of our Savior’s death and resurrection coming from the lips of my child and I had tears in my eyes. Tears of relief and humility as I felt God replace my mommy guilt with His grace.
You see, we’re all trying our best. And if you’re anything like me, it’s easy to feel like a lot of the times your best just isn’t good enough. I can’t do it all, but that’s ok…I wasn’t made to do it all, I was made to rely on God. I can’t be Super Mom, but that’s ok…I wasn’t made to be Super Mom, I was made to need a super God. And that mile-long list of things I really want to teach my kids about faith and love and life, I can’t teach it all, and that’s ok. Because I wasn’t made to teach them everything. I was made to teach them what I can, and in faith, offer them up to God. Because HE is in charge of shaping their hearts and minds, not me. I am doing my best and as evidenced in the story above, God is filling in the pieces I haven’t. I wonder if someone reading this might need to exchange her mommy-guilt for grace…
All that to say…here are a few ideas that I’ve enjoyed using to help teach my kids about Easter.
- Resurrection Eggs can be purchased here or can be homemade using the information found here.
- You can find the Easter story in the Bible in a few places: Matthew 26-28, Mark 14-16, Luke 22-24, and John 18-20
- My favorite Bible for kids is The Jesus Storybook Bible, which you can purchase here. I love this Bible because every single story points toward God’s big plan for saving humanity through His Son.
- If you want to make the Easter booklet for your kids to color, you can download it here. Each page is 4 x 6″, designed to fit perfectly into a small photo album. (We picked a few up at our local dollar store.) It could also be bound with a simple ring if you hole-punched each one. Or you could leave them unbound and color just one part of the story each day. Make a timeline of the story on a wall in your home. Or have kids grab a page and teach you that part of the story.
I would love to hear from you! What resources or methods have you used to teach your kids about Easter?
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We are getting ready to participate in JDRF’s One Walk at Mall of America in just two days. A couple weeks ago, I shared a bit about our first experience at the walk in 2014. (You can read about it here.) Today, I want to share a little bit about our experience last year.
February 2015. Mackenna was 6 years old and at that time had been living with type 1 diabetes for 21 months. Twenty one months of finger pokes and pump site changes, feeling crummy when her blood sugar was high and feeling crummy when her blood sugar was low. Twenty one months of doing the hard things of diabetes. And while she was such a champ about it all, I was starting to get real tired of it all. Being a nurse 24/7 was not a part of my plan for my life and I’d much rather get a good night’s rest than set my alarm for 2 am to poke my daughter’s finger. To top things off, about a month before the walk, Justin was laid off from his job. With the job loss, our health insurance benefits ceased immediately. A chronic illness and no health insurance? Hello, stress! A job loss was also not a part of the plan I had in mind.
When it came time to work on our tshirt design for the JDRF walk in 2015, the Bible verse was an easy choice. I had recently completed a Bible study at our church that focused on 1st and 2nd Peter and when I read this particular verse, the words seemed to fly off the pages straight into my heart:
“So be truly glad. There is wonderful joy ahead, even though you must endure many trials for a little while.” 1 Peter 1:6
I’ve written about this verse before, in fact it’s what inspired the name of this blog. And for 2015, it became my heart’s anthem. It contains three distinct parts: a fact, a hope, and a command.
Fact: You must endure many trials. It doesn’t say you might endure trials, or that you may possibly endure trials. You must. Trials are a part of life that no one escapes.
Hope: The trials are for a little while, and there is wonderful joy ahead. These unavoidable trials are temporary, but the unimaginable joy of eternity with Jesus is ahead for those who believe!
Command: Be truly glad.
I am a crier. I cry at parades and musicals. Sometimes commercials. Almost always while singing songs of worship. I cry happy tears, overwhelmed tears, devestated tears, that’s-hilarious tears…I cry all the tears.
I cried tears of sadness upon entering the mall for the walk in 2015 because (just as it did the year before), it’s a huge reminder of the trial: my daughter has an incurable disease. That’s why we are here in the first place.
And then we walked down the hallway and saw a group of our favorite people waiting for us. All wearing purple unicorn tshirts and smiles. All people who have chosen to walk with us, not just at the fundraiser, but to walk alongside us as we journey through the trials of diabetes. And I cried humble tears of pure joy for the love that our people have poured into us.
And then I stole a moment with my girl and I whispered to her that her team had raised $6,000 to help find her a cure. And I cried humble tears of gratitude. Because we were a month into a season without income or insurance and therefore, we personally contributed $0 to JDRF in 2015.
Two days from now, we’ll walk down the same hallway and meet our favorite people. They’ll be wearing gray shirts this year, but the same loving smiles.
And I’ll be wearing waterproof mascara with my gray tshirt, because we’re 33 months into diabetes and it’s still hard. And the walk will be a reminder that there still is no cure for type 1 diabetes. And because it will always be humbling to see our army of love gathered to support our brave girl. And because…(I can’t even type this without tears)…we are on track to raise $7,000 this year. (Ok, cue the tears.) And for that, I am truly glad!
If you’d like to be a part of Team Mackenna’s Joy, visit our team’s donation page here.
(With the exception of the very first image, all pictures on this page were taken with a cell phone. If you’re interested in seeing more of my photography, please check out these posts here.)
Somehow we’ve fallen into a Friday tradition. On most days, after Mackenna gets on the school bus, we have somewhere to go. Preschool. Taekwondo. Bible study. But not on Fridays. Fridays seem to be our lazy days. The boys and I stay in our jammies. I try to tackle the week’s mountain of laundry. There’s some wrestling. Some cartoon watching. Some more wrestling. Some laundry folding.
It’s a lazy day in the good sense. In the sense that we are not rushing anywhere and there is no agenda. We may get the laundry done, or I may end up playing cars in the kitchen with Lucas or doing beads with Caleb.
Our lazy Fridays have become my favorite day of the week. A couple of Fridays ago, I decided to document our day in photos. These images are real. They are not perfect in the standard perfect-photo sense. I did not wipe faces first. I did not declutter first. I did not pose anyone. This is an authentic portrayal of our days at home. In a couple of years, it’ll just be one of these little guys at home with me. And a couple years after that, the house will be too quiet during the day. I’m thankful to have these images to look back at when I’ve sent them all off on the school bus and returned to an abnormally quiet house.
Happy lazy Friday!
Two things that are ever-present in my life…things that are always there no matter what: kid clutter, and the promises and instructions of God’s Word. They both stare at me first thing, every morning. I am thankful for both of these constants, for much different reasons.
Laundry, piles of shoes, dirty floors, probably-too-much tv time…
In case you don’t have little boys at home and you may be unaware of this fact: boys wrestle.
a lot.
And in case you don’t have little ones at your house, you may not be aware of this fact: they play everywhere. There is no such thing as a play room or a toy room…your whole house is the toy room!
How about this for a super random photo?! That row of condiments is there because the shelving they used to reside in is under construction. The silver bucket holds my hot glue gun and hot glue sticks…it’s there from a leftover project. (Sorry Justin!) But that ipad screen…that’s a constant. That’s my glimpse into how Mackenna’s blood sugars are treating her while she’s at school. Not too bad on this lazy Friday!
More wrestling.
And sometimes the wrestling gets a bit out of hand (during which I have to set my camera down so I can deal with it), so I suggest some jumping. Only one kiddo on the trampoline at a time. That’s the rule. But of course they both want to be first.
Someone has to wait for a turn. (Don’t you just want to smooch those cheekers?!)
His brother is kind, so he gives up his turn pretty quickly (notice the time on the clock).
Jumping makes boys hungry. Mac-n-cheese for lunch.
And then mom insists we need to get some laundry done. One brother helps.
One brother relaxes. He’s tired.
He heads upstairs for his nap.
Every day, Lucas picks a toy to “put down for its nap”. Doesn’t matter which toy, but he puts it in the same spot every day, kisses it good night, and then climbs up into his bed.
And while little brother sleeps, Caleb gets to do a big boy project. He LOVES perler beads.
Before we know it, Lucas is awake again.
Kind of awake.
And pretty soon after that, we watch for Mackenna’s school bus.
Reunited. The after-school sibling hug.
We didn’t get all the laundry done. The boys are still in their jammies, so am I. The floors are still dirty.
But my kids are happy. And they love each other.
Some things matter more than others.
Mackenna was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes in May of 2013. (You can read her diagnosis story here.) At that very instant, we had a brand new something to pray for…something to hope for. A cure.
So when we learned that JDRF hosts an annual fundraiser walk near us, there was no question that we would participate. JDRF is our diabetes-related organization of choice because while other organizations are working toward advancements in both type 1 and type 2 diabetes, JDRF is focused solely on type 1. Their research focuses primarily on three areas: prevention of type 1, innovations in diabetes management, and a cure. All three are things that a parent suddenly becomes passionate about when a doctor tells them that their child has type 1 diabetes, a currently incurable condition. So we decided to form a team, raise funds, and participate in the JDRF Walk for a Cure in 2014.
But what would we name our team? We had all sorts of ideas but nothing really stuck. Our only requirement was that our team name include her name…like Mackenna’s Mob, or Mackenna’s Musketeers or something like that. But not quite like that because those didn’t feel right. We tried her middle name, Joy. Joyful Joggers…Joyous Journeyers. Still not right. And then someone said, “What about just, Mackenna’s Joy?” And right away, we knew that was it. You see, diabetes is not joyful. It is hard and relentless and painful and frustrating. It’s an affliction that she will carry for her entire life unless there’s a cure. Diabetes has stolen our sleep and some of my sanity. It has taken up time and money. But by the grace of our merciful Lord, diabetes has not taken Mackenna’s joy. I wish you all could meet her. She’s spunky and silly and happy and hopeful and JOYFUL!
So we registered Team Mackenna’s Joy for the JDRF walk that February. We had t-shirts made with this verse on them:
Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. -Romans 12:12
It was the perfect verse. Perfect for me. We were just 9 months into our new life with type 1 diabetes and to be honest with you, my heart was still pretty raw and emotional. That verse was a reminder to me of how I should cope with the weight of our new “normal”. To hope for a cure with joy and not despair. To patiently ride out the waves of this affliction. And to keep bringing my requests to the Lord in prayer with faith that He’s got us.
Team Mackenna’s Joy raised over $5,000 for JDRF that year! Isn’t that amazing?! We were blown away by the love and support our friends and family members showed us in such a tangible way. Here are a few snapshots from the day, taken just with my phone.
Later this month, I’ll share some tidbits from our participation in the JDRF One Walk in 2015. If you’d like to support our team, and help bring our sweet little hero one step closer to a cure, you can visit our team page here.
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STOP Stacey! You make me cry! <3