Thursday, February 07, 2008

Lenten Activities

I saw this darling Lamb of God idea last night and fell instantly in love. (Actually, I saw it first at Waltzing Matilda and thought it was just unbelievably cute and clever!) I showed it Darren, gathered some poster board and markers, and then, in the time it took for me to search Google Images for a sweet lamb to use as our guide, Darren just independently sketched this adorable little guy! Dylan traced over the outline with marker and added all the wording and other details, and I lightly penciled in a box for every day until Easter. Meghan had the priviledge of adding the first fluffy cotton ball, and then we hung our poster in our living room where we can enjoy it all day long. Caitlyn added another cotton ball this morning, and Dylan will have his turn tomorrow. Too cute!


We also prepared our Easter basket for Jesus last night, reviewing the guidelines we established last year: for every act of love and/or selflessness that the kids perform, one Easter egg cut from card stock will be added to our basket. We can't wait to see how full we can make it this year!

Our Stations of the Cross are again adorning our hallway walls, and this year we also have a Stations of the Cross book that I bought last summer which we'll use to go along with them. I imagine that Friday evenings will again be devoted to this activity; we enjoyed it a lot last year and look forward to implementing the practice again this Lent.

I thought I would do so much more to prepare for Lent this year, but I think it's probably better that we're keeping it simple and familiar. The activities we've chosen are, I think, well suited for our young family, and by not trying to incorporate too many new traditions I feel much less stressed and more at peace as we embark upon this Lenten journey. It is this quiet that I need to really search my heart, to prepare my soul, to ready myself for Easter. Because I still feel so inadequate. So unworthy. So undeserving of Christ's sacrifice. I see myself for the wretch I am. I pray for the grace to change.

3 comments:

He who wears the most black wins. said...

You say, "keeping it simple" --I say "whoa, girl, you're amazing! How do you do it all?!" I thought I was on the ball by making pretzels with the kids for our simple dinner last night and by doing the Resurrection Eggs each morning!

I am convicted about doing the "crown of thorns" salt dough from Danielle Bean's blog, too. That Lamb is such a sweet way of doing the same thing!


Thanks for the inspiration, Melissa. You're amazing.

Looks like Caitlyn is doing a bit better today? Wonderful.

Karen Edmisten said...

I love your lamb! It's beautiful!

We've done the salt dough crown of thorns in the past, too, and it's really worth the time. It's a neat activity, and the thing I love the most about it is how beautiful it looks at Easter when we spray paint it gold and decorate it. It's just lovely!

Jill said...

Hello Melissa! So glad to be back enjoying a glimpse into the life of a beautiful family. Hope everyone is feeling well. I can't believe you are six months along now! Your Lent sounds perfect.