Preparing Our Hearts

Lent is about repentance and drawing nearer to Christ.  We are supposed to reflect on the things we do and don't do that keep us from Him and then try to change those things.  I mean, we should reflect and strive for holiness always, but Lent is a special time set aside for reflection and repentance.

This year, Hattie came home from school with a booklet of activities to do with your kids to prepare for Easter.  We decided to pick this one and make a Lenten tree:

Striving to become more like Christ, we need to remember to love each other better, to strive for perfect love, like He loves us.

I wrote this verse on the mirror: Therefore encourage one another and build each other up (1 Thessalonians 5:11).

Then Hattie and I went outside and gathered dead branches on the ground.  The dead branches symbolize our death and ugliness in sin.

Then I cut out some colorful eggs from card-stock where we write encouraging notes to each other.  These notes symbolize our love for one another through our sin, just like Christ loves us.

It has been fun for Hattie, especially, to do nice things that are noticed and a nice comment gets added to the tree by Mommy or Daddy.

And I have to say, I enjoy walking by and seeing a new egg on the tree with something that I've done written on it because it's sometimes easy to feel overlooked and unnoticed, especially doing this job!

Can you even read Sean's dyslexic scrawl as we call it? ;)

So if you are looking for something to do with your children to prepare for Easter, I recommend this activity.  It's a good one.  We're enjoying watching our dead tree "come to life" as Easter approaches.