Advent

Tomorrow begins the tradition of doing an advent (Advent means arrival) calendar in our family.  My Mom hand-made us a felt Advent calendar that resembles the one I grew up with and it's all set to go.  I love pulling out the little felt pieces and sharing the readings that point us to the Christmas story in the Bible.

Yesterday, I stumbled upon an ebook called Truth in Tinsel which gives you ideas of crafts, Bible verses and discussion questions to complete with your kids (specifically ages 2-5) for each day of Advent.  The book was a great deal and I took the boys out to invest in our craft supplies yesterday so that Big Brother and I can spend some time bonding around the Christmas story in a way that (hopefully) touches his heart over the next 24 days.

Our church is an advent acknowledging place (thankfully!) so we started our series this past weekend.  Pastor Bob reminded us that Jesus didn't ever instruct us to remember his birth, but to remember his death and resurrection - so to be mindful of his birth this season, but also to keep our eyes fixed on the truth that Jesus WILL come again.  As a community, we have been really challenged by our pastors to be sharing the gospel truth with the people in our lives.  I was telling Ross how I often feel convicted by the fact that I don't have many people in my life who don't know Jesus.  Even in my growing piano studio, every family attends a church and has talked with me about Jesus/church/etc. to some extent!  That's over 15 families and 21 kids - amazing!!

Yesterday, as I was reflecting on the sermon and preparing to do these Advent activities with BB it hit me in the face that right now, two of the most important people I need to be telling about Jesus are my boys. Needless to say, I'm really excited to dig into this season of Advent, sharing the truth about the importance of Jesus' arrival with Big Brother and developing some 'new normal' traditions!