Lent ✝
Today kicks off Lent, which runs for 40 days (not counting Sunday's) until April 13th. This is a period of time, like the 40 days Jesus spent in the wilderness fasting to prepare himself for his ministry, for us to prepare ourselves for the celebration of Jesus' life, death and resurrection in the Easter celebration.
There's oodles of cool Lent activities on Pinterest, I'm sure we'll pick a few of those over the next few weeks to try out in our home.
After reading about Esther this morning in our daily devotional for week 1 of The Minimalist Homeschool, we started reading a Lent focused Bible plan. I love taking a few moments to explain the significance of the people cutting the branches from the trees and laying them down for Jesus to ride over-- like how we roll out a red carpet for celebrities to show they're "special" or "worthy" of passing over a special ground covering.
We started talking about what we could give up for Lent, we discussed how it had to be something significant enough that they would notice it missing. We discussed how when we notice that missing thing, we need to stop and talk to Jesus, to pray to God and to focus our hearts on Him.
Our 12 year old son decided to give up his tablet and instead spend the time he would be playing on that to read his Action Bible or just pray.
Our 6 year old daughter decided to give up any snacks and eat only breakfast, lunch and dinner. She also added in no desserts either. She is a NOTORIOUS snacker- so her sticking to just the 3 meals is HUGE. ;) She said when she's hungry in between meals she'd like to sit down and pray with us.
When our 6 year old asked that I do something food related like her, I picked to fast through the most of the day -- I'll eat an early breakfast and then fast until we have dinner in the evening.
Do you observe Lent? What are you giving up this year?
