Halfway There!
I can't believe the month is half over! This time of year just seems to fly by to me. As half of the month is gone, today I'm thankful for those rare occasions when we slow down long enough to do what's really important. Sunday afternoon, I put aside all those things which monopolize my days (like housework, laundry, cooking, and blogging) and went outside with the kids. It was a cool, blustery day. A perfect fall afternoon for leaf-collecting.
We looked for a variety of shapes and colors of leaves and put them in our bag. Luke was actually feverish and wanted to go home the whole time, but we drug him along anyway in the name of a picture-perfect afternoon outing. (You'll come and you'll look like you're having fun whether you're ready to pass out or not!) There's nothing quite like family togetherness.
We talked about how the seasons (the dying of fall, the quiet death of winter, and the life that comes in spring) relate to Jesus. I tried to get across the concept of how, in Christ, death somehow strangely brings life. Death to our selfishness and our pride leads to true abundant life here and forever. That's kinda hard to get across to kids, evidently. But I tried. The rest is up to the Spirit.
Then we took our leaves home and made something "alive" from something dead. We used the leaves to create animal drawings. Being the amazingly creative mother that I am (ha!), we got the idea of using old cereal and cracker boxes to create our animals on and then made them to stand up for display purposes. Because heaven knows we need a little more kid art displayed in our house.
We looked for a variety of shapes and colors of leaves and put them in our bag. Luke was actually feverish and wanted to go home the whole time, but we drug him along anyway in the name of a picture-perfect afternoon outing. (You'll come and you'll look like you're having fun whether you're ready to pass out or not!) There's nothing quite like family togetherness.
We talked about how the seasons (the dying of fall, the quiet death of winter, and the life that comes in spring) relate to Jesus. I tried to get across the concept of how, in Christ, death somehow strangely brings life. Death to our selfishness and our pride leads to true abundant life here and forever. That's kinda hard to get across to kids, evidently. But I tried. The rest is up to the Spirit.
Then we took our leaves home and made something "alive" from something dead. We used the leaves to create animal drawings. Being the amazingly creative mother that I am (ha!), we got the idea of using old cereal and cracker boxes to create our animals on and then made them to stand up for display purposes. Because heaven knows we need a little more kid art displayed in our house.
This was a bright spot in our weekend of family strife. Evidently we could all use a little more practice on the whole dying to ourselves and living for Christ thing. Maybe this fun fall artwork will serve as a much-needed reminder.
Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. John 12:24-25
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