ADVENT WITH CHILDREN by Candice Duffy

Day 20

The Temple

 

I just want to start this entry with a special story! Tonight is Christmas Eve and we went to our church's Christmas Eve service. As we were sitting there, one of our teaching pastors read the Christmas story, and as he did, Noah excitedly and quite enthusiastically whispered to me, "Joseph, Jesus!!! It's the SAME! Mommy, ANGELS!!! It's the same!!" I knew exactly what he meant. He recognized the story from our advent lessons. It made me so happy because I'll be honest, most days, I really didn't think he was paying much attention. I mean he IS three. I nearly had tears as I elbowed my husband so he could hear our precious boy exclaim his excitement over the Christmas Story. If you remember, my prayer when I started this activity was that Christ would be in the forefront of our minds, that our actions and attitudes would be evidence of that. Specifically, I prayed that God would use this activity to call my children to him. While Noah is only three, I have seen such differences in him especially this month. I truly believe he KNOWS the Christmas story. The reason Christ came. The foundation is being built. As he learns more about our wonderful Lord and sees Christ in believers' lives around him, I pray he will come to trust Him as his Savior one day. I have seen him be notably kinder to his siblings. I have seen him do random acts of kindness expecting nothing in return. I watched today as everyone opened gifts at my mom's - he was genuinely excited for each person and told them how "cool" their gift was (even his girl cousin's Angelina Ballerina DVD). After opening a simple puzzle, he raced over to Granna (my mom) and THREW his arms around her and said, "THANK YOU GRANNA!! I LOVE IT!" Any parent can understand when I say I was beaming!!!! My heart was so happy to see such deep genuine thanksgiving coming from such a tiny little person. So, this Christmas eve, I am thankful that God answered my prayer. I have enjoyed learning with my children, and I have enjoyed watching God work his good in their lives through our time spent in his Word.

 

We missed a few days due to sickness and such, so we are a bit behind. There are 24 total days, and I plan to finish even though Christmas is upon us :) So, tonight we dove into Luke 2:21-40 and learned that Mary and Joseph took Jesus to be dedicated at the temple. Simeon and Anna were two people at the temple who recognized Jesus for who he was - God's Son. They believed and praised God for keeping his promise of sending Jesus. Simeon specifically said, "He is a light to reveal God to the nations..." There it is again - Jesus is the light!! We took some time to remember our first day and everything we knew about Jesus being the light. We made a temple out of some scrapbook paper and drew Mary and Joseph at the entrance.

 

May your family thoroughly enjoy celebrating our greatest gift tomorrow - Jesus! We have four more advent days to go!! I'm excited to see this to the end. Thank you for learning and participating with my family!! Merry Christmas to you all.