Helping Easter come Alive for Our Children

This Easter season.....

....we have followed Jesus' journey.   Here are some elements we used to do that and to help us reflect on the passion and the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ as a family.  My goal for our family has always been to make Easter come alive as much as possible for our two boys.  At ages 10 and 6 we continue to share the message of the Gospel with them, and for the first time this year our youngest is starting to really internalize some things. 

Palm Sunday we started with our Resurrection eggs.

Each egg is filled with a different element of the Easter account.  We read a devotional and the Bible account of each part of the Easter story pertaining to that particular element.  

Our 10 year old has memorized the eggs and he knows the first egg is the donkey on which Jesus rode into Jerusalem.  He and his brother take turns opening eggs and I've noticed this year that our oldest is wanting more and more to help his younger brother understand the Easter story.

As we take each element out, we then place them in a special place where they can be observed.  

The elements are:

The Donkey    Matthew 21:1-9

The Silver Coins of betrayal    Matthew 26:14-16, 46-50, 27:1-5

The Passover Cup    Matthew 26:17-19, 26-28,  Exodus 12:23

The Praying Hands   Mark 14:32-42

The Leather Whip   John 19:1-15

The Crown of Thorns   Matthew 27:29-31

The Nails in the Cross    John 19:16-22

The Dice used for gambling for Jesus garments    John 19:23-25

The Spear that pierced Jesus' side    John 19:31-37

The Linen used to wrap Jesus' body    Matthew 27:57-61

A Stone for sealing the Tomb   Matthew 28:1-3

An empty egg/tomb  Jesus is not here.  He has risen!!   Matthew 28:5-8

This year when we got to the Passover cup, we had just celebrated communion at our church.  Thank you Lord for this timing!  That night we were able to read the Scriptures about the Last Supper to the boys and dramatize and share with them through physical  symbols (pita bread and grape juice) what happened on that first communion night. We're hoping this will help in their understanding of what the Last Supper is, its special meaning  and why we partake of it in church.

As the week progressed we talked about the different elements of our resurrection eggs.  

We thought about Jesus and what he went through, though we will never ever fully comprehend the intensity, nor the suffering he endured for our salvation.  At least we're hoping to give the boys a glimpse of that suffering in leading them to God's Word.  And we want them to be filled with the joy of the Lord in knowing that Christ has made a place for them in heaven. We want them to have the hope we have in Christ.  And we desire for them to be able to share their faith with anyone. 

There is a movie we enjoy watching each Easter Season as well.  It is the "Gospel of John".  A word for word account of John's Gospel from the Good News Bible translation.  We also watched the movie  "The Greatest Story Ever Told".  

There are other elements I personally add which are entirely sentimental to remember family members who have passed on into Jesus' presence.  My Grandmother is always a part of my Easter, even though she passed away 17 years ago.

She made Easter crafts that I still have and I love to put out her eggs, and crocheted bunnies.  She was a great woman of faith and I like to instill in the boys that because of what Jesus did for us, we will see our loved ones again.  God made a way through his Son Jesus Christ, where there was no other way.  They may never have met their great grandmother, but they will one day. 

Actual eggs, decorated inside and out with paper cut outs. 

 Here are her crocheted bunnies.

 Something new we did this year (an idea I want to tweak) is memorizing Scripture verses from the Easter account or learning more of the names of Jesus.  This year I put the Scripture cards in a big glass bowl with colorful eggs.   I did not plan well enough this year to do this ahead of time.  Now I have a plenty of time to start this for next year.   The Scriptures we used this year came from Children's church.   Each month the boys memorize a Scripture that goes along with a character trait they are studying during Sunday School.  We used these Scripture cards which they have already memorized.

Another element, which is now a Crovi tradition, is planting flowers, and sharing flowers from our yard that bloom this time of year, and reflecting on new life.  Christ gives us new life when we believe in him.  Mike bought me a blue hydrangea this year for Easter.

Our youngest picked out a Petunia this year.

Dutch Iris

Our oldest picked out Poppies for this year.

 This year we cut Iris for Grandmom.  A sweet memory for her because she knew exactly where these flowers came from..... her yard at one time many years ago, now transplanted into my yard.   And we also shared Iris with our next door neighbor who loves flowers as much as I do.  

Every Easter is different and each year the Lord teaches me something else, takes me to a deeper level of awareness if I carve out that time to reflect on Him and spend time with Him.  This year the big gift to me was a tenebrae service.  It was the first time I ever remember actually going to one.  I went to one held at my childhood church this year.  It was beautiful and very powerful.  I want all of us to experience that during Holy Week next year and in the years to come.  It's hard to just think on the resurrection of Jesus, if you do not first quiet your heart and ponder his passion and suffering on the cross.

Easter is the best day of the year.  With no Easter there is no resurrection of life and hope of eternal life.

I have told the boys that every day we should act like we have the hope of Easter.  We have that joy in Christ.  He has given us the abundant life!

 And Easter would not be Easter without celebrating the joy you share with family!
Buona Pasqua is "Happy Easter" in Italian.  We were greeted by Mike's mom on Easter Sunday with a hug, huge smile and "Buona Pasqua!"

The song "In Christ Alone" pretty much sums up Easter for me.   "For I am His and He is mine..... bought with the precious blood of Christ."  

Listen to "In Christ Alone" HERE

No Other Love

No other love have I seen quite like this one....

My parents share a love that has stood the test of time.

A love where each has truly cherished the other.

A love that has endured through great happiness, much joy, through loss, and hardship.  

They have never given up on the other.  They have sacrificed and served each other through their faith.  I've never seen a devotion like the devotion they have for each other.

Oh to have witnessed this and such examples for my life.  It is an incredible gift from God.

And 58 years later, that devotion is still there, though dynamics due to medical issues for each have changed their life together in many ways. 

Through the battling of significant, current medical issues, they continue to smile with one another, bring love and happiness to each other in a way only they can for each other.   Neither one is complete without the other.  It's just always been that way.

My Dad still calls Mom, "his bride".  

Photo by my brother, Tom Poston

Photo by my brother, Tom Poston

 She always will be.

And he will always be her one and only love.

A favorite song of theirs was always "No Other Love" from the 1953 musical "Me and Juliet" by Rogers and Hammerstein.  My Dad was in the Navy and I can only imagine how Mom and he must have felt to be separated from each other at that time.  Dad's parents gave Mom her engagement ring on behalf of my dad.  She of course said "yes".  And eventually got on a plane and flew thousands of miles to Hawaii to marry him.  (Her first time on a plane too!)

Listen to NO OTHER LOVE here

Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad!

You are such a gift to me.

Inscriptions from the Heart

Over the years I have been blessed by others in my family and my close friends to have received books with personal inscriptions in them.  I always think a personal note makes a gift more special.  A note from the heart to me says so much.

It says, "I'm thinking of you.  This is why I'm giving you this gift."  And it is a reminder later on of who gave you the gift, so you can look back and smile.  At least this is what I do.

There was a Bible I remember at my Great Aunt's apartment outside Washington, DC.  It was a copy of the Living Bible.  I was always drawn to that Bible for some reason as a child.  I think it was because I could actually understand the words better than my little King James Bible.

 I remember picking it up, looking at it and reading parts of it each summer while visiting my aunt for those two weeks.  We saw her every summer during my childhood.  When it was time to go home the Bible stayed there 8 hours away from home.  It never occurred to me to ask my folks if I could have a Bible in this translation.

My Aunt noticed I always liked this Bible and one day when I was 9, she handed it to me and asked me if I'd like to have it.  I of course said, "Yes and thank you!"  She told me to look inside and read the note she wrote to me.

 From that point on, this was the Bible I read.  It was the Bible I could understand, and King James got left on the shelf.  What my Aunt did not realize is that she passed her faith on to me in a very special way, all because of a simple gift of a Bible.  Everything she had in her heart for me that day when I was 9 years old, and she wrote down in the covers of that Bible, came true. God's Word is all of those things to me and more.

One of my favorite passages from John 14.

"Let not your heart be troubled.  You are trusting in God, now trust in me.  There are many homes up there where my Father lives, and I am going to prepare them for your coming.  When everything is ready, then I will come and get you, so that you can always be with me where I am.  If this weren't so, I would tell you plainly.  'And you know where I am going and how to get there."  John 14:1-4   " I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life."  John 14:6

So many times these words have inspired me, given me hope and strengthened my faith.

What is so interesting about this Bible is that it is actually connected to another Bible also belonging to my Aunt.  It was her Scofield Bible, given to her by her husband John.

There was another inscription I found in this Bible.  But I did not find it until I was an adult.  This Bible in particular sat on a bookshelf at my folks house for years after my Aunt passed away in 1984.
I found it one day and opened it and these are the words tucked inside from 1952.

The same words her husband had shared with her when he gave her this Scofield Bible, she had wanted to share with me.

My uncle was an Army Chaplain during WWII and he was a man of unwaivering and tremendous faith, having survived the Bataan Death March and being a POW in a Japanese concentration camp for over 2 years.  His faith was amazing and I will devote a post to his story one day.


Within the pages of my Aunt's Bible I also found this card with the famous painting of Jesus on it.  It was what was on the flip side of the card that was truly very interesting.  A little surprise perhaps from God, who knows....

The card was actually a calendar.  A calendar from the Department of Chaplains and Service Personnel.  My Aunt was an Army nurse with the rank of Major.  The calendar was from the year of my birth..... 1966. No telling how long it had been in there.  Maybe since 1966! 

What I learned from that calendar too was what day I was born on.  I did not know this fact before because I was adopted.  I was born on a Sunday.  It was kind of nice to know that....

It's amazing how God works to accomplish His will.  Faith from those before us can be passed down.  It is what I hope to do with my kids now and grand kids one day.
We will make an impact on those we love for good or for bad.  I want mine to count for the kingdom.

A simple Bible given to me made quite an impact.  And to have a Great Aunt and Great Uncle who had such a tremendous faith was even more of a gift.  I do not remember my uncle because  I was 6 when he died and they lived far from us.  But I know his story and it is worth telling.  My Aunt was like a 3rd grandmother to my brother and I.  She and John did not have any children, so my dad was like her son and my mother like her daughter.  I remember her so fondly with much love.