Friday, April 22, 2011

Easter Bunny

So if you followed our blog back around Christmas time, you might remember me saying that we have decided to go against the norm (or so it seems) and not do Santa Claus with SK. Well, that then must raise the question about what we will do with other holiday characters. The answer: the same. We feel the same way about the Easter Bunny as we do about Santa. Both aren't horrible or we aren't downing those who do this with their kids. That is what I don't want to do. I am not here to point fingers and say we have it all figured out and our ways are better than others. This is just what works for us. We know plenty of people who do Santa and everything else and their children completely know the gospel and it doesn't take away from the true reason for the holiday. We just feel like for our family, we want to take away distractions. Both Michael and I both grew up with Santa and the Easter Bunny and all. Do we feel like our parents were wrong? Or did a poor job training us and raising up strong Christians? Absolutely not. We have just decided to look at why we do things and decide for ourselves what we want to do in our home and why do it. So many times these "holidays" turn so much into buying and getting for each other and I want to get away from that. I want the focus of this season to be about Christ and how He is a Risen Savior! I can easily fall into focusing my energy into having a cute dress for SK and fun activities and totally not spend near the same amount of energy into teaching SK what Easter is. What we are celebrating, not only on this one Sunday each year, but every single Sunday. Christ is resurected! Death was not the victor.

So how do we handle not doing this whole bunny thing. We don't really have that all figured out. Suggestions welcomed. We are planning to teach SK about Santa and the Easter Bunny just like Winny the Pooh or Dora. They are good stories and fun. Some people believe them to be more than that and that is ok. We are still praying through how to teach Sk about it in a way that glorifies God and points her to Him.

We want SK to look foward to Easter Sunday because we get to celebrate with the body of Christ what an incredible Savior we have and we get to call Father/Daddy. How awesome is that. I want her to hunger for Him and seek His face instead of being so focussed on what she can get in her basket Sunday morning.

Once again, don't get irritated with me if you do different. Or if you do, I am sorry. We don't claim to think our way is best. We are messed up sinners who are just trying to keep our eyes on Christ and pray for God to be glorified through us. As messed up as we are.
We do have fun plans tomorrow night. We have made a family tradition with SK making resurrection cookies on Sat. night. I will post pics hopefully tomorrow from doing that. If you haven't heard of them, check out this website. SK had so much fun helping last year and I am sure will enjoy it this year. She loves to help in the kitchen.
We have been looking at Philippians on Wed. nights. It has been so awesome to just rest in Christ on Wed. nights. So I will leave you with this:
"Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead. I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus."--Philippians 2:12-14
The prize is in front of us and we are to press on. So press on friends.

1 comment:

  1. Michelle, I love the resurrection cookies. I am thinking about making them with the toddlers, but I am not sure if they will understand. I know we are going to have Resurrection eggs. Miss you.

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