When my children were very little, my husband and I brainstormed, "How can we make God/Jesus real in our home?" How does a toddler come to know that God and Jesus are real -- when they can't be seen?
We first decided to let them be seen. We read Bible stories (The Beginner's Bible) with colorful pictures. Then, I found a greeting card that had a picture of Jesus and a little lamb. I cut it out. Every night before bed, as we said our goodnights, we hugged and kissed the kids and then we all told Jesus "Goodnight." Holly would kiss His picture and say, "Night, night Jesus! I love you!" She knew about Jesus from the Bible stories that we read, but the picture solidified things. As she got older, and she could understand the abstract concept of God being a spirit (as much as we humans can understand the concept), the picture was put away.
When both our kids were a little older, but still preschoolers, we read about the last trumpet sounding and Jesus' return. We wanted to make that memorable and real as well. We pulled out the mattress from the sleeper sofa and laid it on the floor in the family room. We handed out noise-makers (party horns). As Daddy read the story and reached the part about the trumpet, we all blew our horns! Then, as we heard that Jesus was in the air and we were going to rise up to meet Him, we all jumped up and down on the mattress, trying to jump as high as we could to meet Him. We did this several times over a few years and my kids still remember it -- almost 10 years later!
I had a friend long ago, who was very interested in making Santa real for her kids. When her son reached the age of 12 and began to question that fact, she and her husband worked extra hard to keep him believing the fantasy. They created a video of Santa coming on Christmas eve that probably bought them another 2 years of belief. I thought she was going a long way to lie to her kids. I would much rather go the extra mile to teach them the truth and have them believe that. If you've done something special to "make it real" for your kids, please post a comment. THANKS!
We took the opposite stance on Santa in order to make Jesus real. I didn't want the kids to equate Santa and the Easter bunny with being fake with Jesus being fake or a fairy tale. We never allowed Santa or the Bunny to be a part of our celebrations. We told them straight up that those things were not real and were distractions to the Gospel and to Jesus. My kids never felt that they have missed out or have been slighted. The look at the foolessness of the world and think that is all just foolesness!
ReplyDeleteWe simply talk about our faith and about Jesus' work in our lives. When kids see Jesus is real to their parents, he becomes real to them. It's that simple - at least when they're little. It goes along with the "Do as I do" principle.
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ReplyDeleteRemoved because of a typo I wanted to fix - I didn't know it would leave a record of my original comment. Sorry.
ReplyDeleteWhat I wanted to say was. . .I like your last trumpet activity :-)
Thank you, Lisa, Jennifer & Loretta! I agree -- modeling is the best teacher!
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