Wednesday 15 February 2012

What are you doing for Lent 

A few times over the last weeks Rachel has asked me why the shops have Easter eggs when it's "ages til Easter".  I have agreed with her and confirmed that we've got 5 weeks of lent first, which doesn't even start for another week.

Today the conversation moved on as she asked what she could give up this lent.  I was shocked that she'd remembered that she'd given up biscuits last year and asked her why she wanted to do something again.  As only a child can, her reply was simple and perfect .... "every day I remembered I'd given up biscuits because Jesus gave up his life".  Wow!

We talked about what she could give up and she decided on chocolate.  We also discussed what she could take up and I talked about perhaps having a daily prayer to help us get closer to Jesus before Easter.

She of course took it a step further with her idea.   She told me she wanted her own "proper" bible now and wanted to read it every day.

I had no idea what bibles were available between kids bibles and the full blown adult version, which are a little much even for her.  But I knew where to go, good old Quench, our local Christian Bookshop.  They were brilliant and found us Candle Bible Stories for Every Day.



Rachel likes the illustrations and can easily read the stories.  I like the fact that many of the bible stories excluded in children's bibles are included in this version.  We both like the fact that it is a years worth of daily readings.

And so Rachel is set for lent; she's giving up chocolate and taking up daily bible reading and prayer.

Makes me wonder what I'll give up and take up; how about you?

post publishing addition: find the lent course I'm taking up at #BigRead12 - I'm taking part, are you?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

It's a difficult one for me. If I get straight to the point, I think in my time of doubt (I'll talk about that later), I really need to push myself to communicate to God, and by that I mean through prayer, going back to Church, standing up for what I believe in.
God Bless!