Faultless

I am SO excited for Easter season.  I LOVE it.  I love Spring, I love the time to focus on Jesus, and I love to find reasons to be with my family.  

As many of you know, I tend to get a little stressed out during April and November due to Parent Teacher Conferences at my school.  Unfortunately, this hectic and crazy time tends to coincide with Easter.  I have all of these beautiful and spiritual daydreams of having Easter Week activities, one every night as a countdown, the way we do for Christmas.  

(This is a pic from last year that I came across while planning Easter stuff for this year!  One of those parenting moments you never want to forget!)

But as you can tell from last year,

 Easter Week Festivities 2012, it doesn't always work out how I want it to, and we miss a few activities or nights or play catch up because I simply can't do it all.  So, I thought maybe we could just Countdown to Easter with our Monday Family Nights this year.  It's not quite the same, but then we can focus all of March on the Savior and why we really celebrate Easter.  Basically, we are experimenting and we'll see how it goes.  And maybe, just maybe, we can get a few extra activities in for Good Friday and Saturday.  We'll see! 

I was inspired for the topic of our first Easter Family Night by a song on the Hilary Weeks cd I bought recently.

To be perfectly honest, it's not my favorite of her cds.  But, there are a few songs I love, and one that I cannot get out of my head.  It's called Fautless. 

For the start of our FHE, I asked them why we celebrate Easter.  My sweet big kids said, "To remember when Jesus was resurrected!"  (So glad hey didn't say anything about Easter Eggs!)  Then, I reviewed the Easter Story with my kiddos. I have some little visuals to tell the story in a really simple way, and we walked through it, reviewing for the big kids and teaching Victoria.  

I then said, we DO celebrate His resurrection at Easter, but why is His resurrection important?  Why does it matter and what does it mean to us?  Then we talked about the Atonement for a few moments.  I explained that the Atonement IS the gospel.  Everything else we teach is just extra.  The ONE thing I want them to know is that Jesus is the Son of God; He came to earth and paid the price for our sins so that we can return to our Father in Heaven.  And then we went into the other room and closed our eyes while we listened to this song, Faultless.

I know that there are many other songs that teach the message of Christ's atonement, but there is a particular reason I selected this one.  Listen for yourself.  In particular, listen for the words of the second verse.  

I have attached a link here to a Youtube video someone put together to this song.  Although the photography is lovely, I feel lit detracts from the words, so I suggest just closing your eyes or whatever you have to do to let the words sink in!

"If my sins were like drops of water, and I tried to hold them with my hands held tight

Some would slip through, right past my fingers I couldn't catch them all, 

No Matter how hard I tried...

But there are hands that have my name forever written on them

The price was paid and not a single soul will be forgotten, 

As we receive His grace

On that day, on the Day of Grace, through the sinless One

My sins will be washed away 

And I'll stand Worthy, only because He stands by me.

With mercy, and love without end , He will lift me

so I'll never Fall again and He'll present me

Faultless

Faultless before God."

Then we came back into the kitchen and Matt read Isaiah 49:15-16

I made a little card with the words of this verse for each of them, asking them to keep it in their rooms somewhere and to read it before they prayed at night.

Before dinner, I used this recipe and made some homemade clay for them to use.  We got out the clay and  impressed their hands onto the clay, using a toothpick to carve their names inside.  I wanted them to get a concrete example of what it meant to have our names graven on Christ's palms.  Then, we carve the scripture reference underneath and talked a little about what it means to know that Christ will never forget us.  

"Can a ^awoman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I not ^bforget thee.

 16 Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands; thy walls are continually before me."

I LOVE this verse... my children were able to easily grasp the imagery of a mother not forgetting her nursing baby-  and then when I explained that when Jesus speaks to us in this verse, He is saying that it is more liekly that a Mommy would forget her baby than that He would forget us.  His hands were pierced for our sake, Our names are graven on His palms.  Using the clay ( I hope!)  helped them to grasp what "graven" means.  

After we finished that activity, I saved a little clay for them to mold.  Here's Daphne's fish:

While they were molding the clay, Matt shared this Easter video with them:

When it was over, Victoria smiled sweetly and said, "That was a good one, Dad!  I liked that one!"

I LOVE Easter!  I am so grateful for the sunshine and the signs of Spring leading up to one special day to remember the hope we have through our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  May you and yours have a blessed Easter Season!