I heard about the Easter Un-Basket from a friend too late in 2013 to make it happen for Easter then, so I wrote myself a note about what I wanted to do in 2014. I also researched it on the Internet and fell even more in love with the idea.
I have always thought there needs to be a bigger celebration at Easter, but I haven't quite figured out what it should be. I've always wondered about Easter egg hunts and Easter baskets. I am definitely not a fan of the Easter bunny. I have a desire to give presents at Easter because it is a time of great celebration, but I also want it to have meaning.
The Easter Un-Basket fixes some of that for me. Some may call it the un-Easter basket, but I don't like that. I don't want any kind of "un" in front of Easter. Here is how we did it.
On Good Friday, we went outside and gathered 5 rocks each. Aria chose the number we gathered. Then we sat on our deck and thought of sins we struggle with and wrote them on our rocks. Aria thought of and wrote her own on her rocks. She was incredibly thoughtful in listing things she really does struggle with instead of random things she knows are wrong, but rarely ever does. It was another sign to me that her faith is real. We talked about how rocks are heavy and sins weigh us down. We then put all of our sins in a basket and covered them with a red cloth to represent Jesus' blood. We left them in the middle of our kitchen table for the weekend, right next to Aria's white rose.
On Saturday night after Aria went to bed, we transformed the setting. When we were originally discussing how we wanted to do this activity, Justin and I wanted the basket to be about all of us because Jesus died for all of us. He takes away all of our sins. While we didn't really want to give each other presents, we didn't want Aria to be the only one with blessings in the basket instead of sins. Note to self, start thinking of blessing ideas and shopping for them sooner than Good Friday next year.
On Sunday morning, here was our table:
On the left is the empty tomb where Jesus' body was placed. In the middle is a new basket with Jesus' name on it and inside are all of our sins, covered with a white cloth. On the right is the original basket with our names on it and special blessings for each of us. One of Aria's blessings was a hula hoop, which is what is around the baskets. Attached to the hula hoop is Romans 8:38-39 where it states that nothing can separate us from the love of God through Christ Jesus. Just like a circle has no end, God's love for us has no end. Aria also got a cross necklace which we purchased to remember her giving her heart to Jesus. The little card the necklace came on actually said, "My heart belongs to Jesus." Aria got an Adventures in Odyssey cd, which are stories that are practical examples for kids to live out their faith. We also gave her a water bottle with the verse from John about Jesus being the living water inside of us. Justin got a new water bottle, too. There is a colorful plaque that has Philippians 4:8 on it, which is one of our family verses this year. And Justin and I both got books to help us grow our faith.
Our theme was to put things in the basket that either symbolized our faith or would help us grow in our faith. Of course it is really easy to find things for Aria, but it was a bit more tricky for mom and dad. After doing the basket and trying to think deeper about the meaning this year, hopefully we will have better ideas in the future. I don't want to buy stuff just to buy stuff, but I want to help us all think about how Jesus suffered severely on the cross so we could have the life we do today. The symbolism was powerful. Aria was equally amazed that all of our sins were in Jesus' basket as she was with the blessings that were in ours. Our sins were just gone and we did absolutely nothing to deserve it. Amazing! It gives me the chills to think about it.
Back in March I came up with a plan for my own version of Resurrection Eggs to help Aria grasp the meaning of Easter more clearly. I made my plan similar to what we did last year. I wanted to tell more than the Easter story; to focus on Jesus' life on earth. My goal was to help Aria understand her Savior beyond His death. After completing all of our reading and activities, I think Aria has a good four year old grasp of who Jesus is. She understands a little about Jesus' time on earth and what he did while he was here. We read the Bible so often that she knows so many of the stories very well. So note to self, next year I want to go back to focusing on the story of Jesus' death and resurrection around Easter. We can go into more detail and deepen her specific knowledge of those weeks.
Back to this year. I came up with 20 eggs. Each egg had a Bible verse and an object clue. We started with Jesus' birth and ended with the Holy Spirit coming. My goal was to read from the Bible every day and do some sort of craft or activity to connect to what we read. Aria loves doing crafts and they are great physical reminders of what she learned. She also loves to act things out, which definitely helps plant the story in her mind.
One thing that came of our eggs this year was Aria learning how to read verse references. We talked about Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John being the Gospel and the books that tell about Jesus' life. She learned how to read the number references for the chapter and verse, too. We read the verses from my Bible every day. Sometimes we read the story from one of her storybook Bibles, too. Here is my list:
1. John 3:16 and the story of Jesus' birth. We made a star like the one over Bethlehem when Jesus was born.
2. Luke 2:49. The story of Jesus as a boy in the temple. We built a temple out of toothpicks and marshmallows.
3. Matthew 3:16-17. Jesus' baptism. We made stick people Jesus and John and acted out the baptism with some gold glitter and a dove.
4. Matthew 4:19. Jesus calls his disciples. We made 12 notes for friends and family to tell them Jesus loves them like the disciples did.
5. Matthew 6:9-13. Jesus teaches how to pray. My goal was to learn the Lord's prayer, but Aria was not interested so it didn't stick.
6. John 9:11. Jesus heals a blind man. We acted it out like this:
7. Mark 11:7-10. Palm Sunday. We made palm branches and acted out Jesus' triumphant entry to Jerusalem.
8. Matthew 26:14-16. Judas agrees to betray Jesus. My original idea was to find a place to give our money to do the opposite of what Judas did when he accepted money to betray Jesus, but we ended up not doing that. I think we had a busy day and we just read the verses.
9. John 13:6-9. Jesus washes his disciples feet. We washed each other's feet.
10. Exodus 12:12-14. The story of the Passover in the time of Moses. I included this to help Aria connect what Jesus was celebrating with the disciples and the same sacrifice He made as the lamb was used for in the time of Moses. Aria really likes the story of the plagues and knows it well. I think she somewhat grasped the connection to Jesus, but it is definitely an idea to explore further. We made a cotton ball sheep because they sacrificed a lamb and because Jesus is the Lamb of God.
11. Luke 22:14-20. The Last Supper. Of course, this is the day that Aria told us she asked Jesus to live in her heart! We ended up not baking bread together like I originally planned because we were celebrating Aria's faith!
12. Luke 23:46. Good Friday. Jesus died on the cross. We did an Easter unbasket this year. I will post more about it later, but we wrote our sins on rocks and placed them in our basket. I was amazed at Aria's sincerity with this activity. She wrote sins she really struggles with. It was wonderful symbolism.
13. Mark 15:42-47. Jesus' body was placed in a tomb. We wrapped up our Jesus stick person in cloth and placed him in the garden tomb we made and closed it up.
14. Matthew 28:5-6. Easter Sunday. Jesus is alive! We made Resurrection rolls. We discovered Jesus was not in the tomb. We found all of our "sins" in Jesus' basket and blessings in our basket. It was a great day!
15. John 20:10-18. Mary sees Jesus near the tomb. We planted some flowers as a sign of new life.
16. John 20:24-31. Thomas doubts that Jesus is real. We made holes we could put our fingers in like Thomas did to Jesus, only ours weren't in our skin.
17. John 21:4-6. Jesus eats fish with the disciples. We ate some goldfish, too. We were going to make a fish craft, but didn't have time.
18. Matthew 28:19-20. The Great Commission. We put stars on a world map of places where we donate money to help others learn about Jesus.
19. Acts 1:7-11. Jesus is taken to Heaven. I found a really cool craft where you use a plastic cup and a piece of yarn to pull Jesus up into the clouds. I didn't take a picture, but it turned out really cool!
20. Acts 2:1-4. The Holy Spirit comes as flames on the disciples' heads. We made a picture of 11 faces to represent the disciples and tissue paper fire on their heads.
Now this is an activity that has drawn much excitement each time we have done it. As a part of our Resurrection Eggs, we read the story of Jesus washing His disciples' feet and then took turns doing it for each other. I really think Aria enjoys both parts. I tried to get her to wait for Daddy to get home so he could be a part of it, but she really wanted to do it right away. Maybe Daddy's feet are too stinky. :)
I am a firm believer that stories from the Bible sink in much farther when we act them out. It gives us an event to connect to and real feelings to remember. I don't think we can reproduce the magnitude of the situation when Jesus washed His disciples' feet, but we will continue to act it out and try to understand.
"If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you too ought to wash one another's feet." John 13:14
We made a Resurrection Garden again this year, but it didn't quite have the same effect as last year. We had a good time making it, especially since Daddy got to help, but Aria's interest wasn't the same as last year.
After we made it, Aria was not interested in spraying it with water every day, which surprised me. I do love the symbolism. We used it on Good Friday through Easter Sunday to place Jesus in the tomb and then find him not there. I think it really adds to the joy and amazement when you can physically look in a "tomb" and find Jesus not there. We didn't have very much grass grow on it this year, which may have added to the lack of interest. Or maybe we just didn't plant it soon enough because she has been more excited about it lately with the grass growing. I might have to look for an alternative visual for next year. Sometimes I get stuck on "traditions" and maybe a new perspective will help us grow more.
Today was a wonderful day in the Pegump household! This morning we read from the Bible about the Last Supper and how Jesus broke the bread and poured out the wine as a symbol of how His body would break and His blood would pour out. We were having a conversation about taking Communion in church and Aria wanted to know when she could have the bread and juice. I said that all you have to do is love Jesus, tell him you are sorry for your sins and ask him to live in your heart so you can go to Heaven. She then said, "but mom I already did that!"
In our most recent conversation about salvation before this morning, Aria had told me she didn't want to talk to Jesus with me listening. I told her that she can always talk to Jesus and I don't have to hear it, that it was just between her and Jesus. So this morning when she told me that during her rest time this week she prayed and asked Jesus to live in her heart, it made sense to me and fits her personality that she wanted to do that on her own. She is very excited and it is so awesome to see a new confidence in her about her faith. I didn't know this transformation could be so real at such a young age, but it is clear and beautiful and a work only God can do!
Aria can be a pretty shy girl and she definitely does not like attention on herself for things. So, whenever we had conversations about asking Jesus to live in her heart, she didn't want to talk about it. One time I remember her saying, "I believe, I just don't want to say that prayer." I used to be pretty focused on making sure she accepted Jesus and "crossed the line of faith." I thought there was something I could do to make her do it or that there was something I was not doing to encourage her the right way. But a few months ago, after listening to our children's pastor talk about the topic, I realized there wasn't anything I could do but pray for Aria and give her the information. I have backed off trying to force her into it, which is good because that would not have been real anyway. Instead I knew that her trust would come on her terms.
So I was not in the least surprised that she didn't want me to hear her pray. I also know it is very real. She was confident when she told me she had said the prayer and she was excited to tell Daddy and Grandma and the pastors at church and her friend and the lady at Hy Vee. She still didn't want to tell them herself, but she wanted them to know. That is a different Aria than I am used to and I know it can only be because God is present in her heart.
It is cause for joyous celebration and it is a day I will remember forever!
There are many moments in parenthood where mom and dad feel completely helpless. Common examples include when your child is sick, when someone hurts their feelings, when they get hurt, or when they refuse to follow a certain behavior request by the parents. Or when your daughter spends more than an hour coughing in the wee hours of the morning on her birthday.
Aria has one of the worst coughs she has had in her entire four years. It really seemed to begin about 4 am on her birthday. She woke up coughing and could not get settled back down. We got water, Vicks, the vaporizer, propped her up on another pillow and none of it seemed to help. And the birthday streamers and Minnie and Daisy dangly things in her doorway were not in the way at all for the 14 trips in and out of her room. At 4 am.
Once I knew we had done everything we could to try to help her with the cough, I laid in my bed praying over and over and over, "God, please help her stop coughing. Give her rest. Don't let her feel yucky on her birthday."
I felt completely helpless.
I wanted to go in Aria's room and remove the cough from her chest and place it in mine. I wanted to take on her pain and suffering so she didn't have to feel those things. First of all, I remember my parents, my dad in particular, wanting to do the same for me when I was young. My dad would endure all kinds of suffering if it meant I didn't have to. Or Aria. It is amazing how becoming a parent helps you understand your own parents so much more.
And then there is the great parallel. Jesus took on my suffering so I didn't have to experience it.
Aria's suffering wasn't by choice, but a virus that infiltrated her body. But my sin is something I choose. I deserve punishment and suffering. Jesus took it for me anyway. That's why I am not hopeless.
I know Aria's cold will eventually go away. I know her suffering won't last forever. But in the middle of the night, lacking sleep and not being able to do anything about it, it is easy for me to lose sight of that. On night two I got frustrated and angry. But then I realized that God is in control and He would give me the love and endurance I needed to care for my girl, whatever that might entail.
Suffering from a cough in the middle of the night is not fun. Living as a saint who sins isn't always great, either. But I have hope in Jesus Christ and eternal life with Him someday. And when that day comes none of us will have to feel helpless again.
Last year, as I was slightly dissatisfied with our Advent activities, I came up with the idea of doing an A to Z for Advent this year. So I compiled notes throughout the year and looked over things I've done in the past and put together this year's Advent activities, or Jesus crafts as Aria calls them. I called it, "Christmas is Jesus A to Z." I don't claim to be any kind of expert and I don't plan to publish what we did, but what we did worked for us. I think Aria had fun and learned more about Jesus and it kept our focus on Him this Christmas season. I couldn't ask for much more.
After changing my mind a zillion times about what word to use for each letter and what order I wanted to go in, I made a chart for Aria to glue up the alphabet cards as we did them. Here is what our completed chart looks like:
We didn't go in alphabet order, but I tried to have kind of a through the Bible order. Here is what we did:
B is for Beginning. We read the Creation story and talked about God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit being the only ones there at the beginning. She really got it. We made this craft, which is supposed to be the Trinity up above that created the earth below.
S is for Sin. We read the story of Adam and Eve and talked about sin entering the world. We talked about needing a Rescuer at that point. We made a snake out of pipe cleaners, which will be in a picture shortly.
O is for Old Testament. We looked through the Bible and discerned what part was the Old Testament and what part was the new testament. I made a "book" out of a box and Aria glued pictures of Old Testament stories on the OT side of the box.
D is for David. Instead of reading David and Goliath that she was familiar with, we focused on David being king and from Bethlehem. She got the connection there. Aria made a harp out of craft sticks and rubber bands. Here is a picture of those three things:
I is for Isaiah. We read about Isaiah's job as a prophet, to tell people that they needed a Rescuer and that He was coming soon. She enjoyed the connection of the Scripture that prophesies about Jesus. We made a megaphone to show that Isaiah told lots of people about Jesus coming.
R is for Rescuer. We looked back at the story of Isaiah (in the Jesus Storybook Bible) and talked about why Jesus was coming to rescue us. We played a game where we used Aria's swimming tube with a rope tied around it and "rescued" her dolls and her when they needed help in the "water." I think it was a good connection point.
X is for eXcited. There is a good story in the Jesus Storybook Bible about getting ready for the Messiah to come. We read that and talked about other things we were excited for.
This is a good time to mention that some of these took 30 minutes and some of them might have only taken 5. It depended on our time for the day. We also did some days with two letters.
N is for New Testament. This was essentially the same as the OT craft. We looked through the New Testament stories and Aria glued pictures of them on the NT side of the book. I was blown away that she immediately recognized the picture of Saul/Paul. She really knows a lot of Bible stories!
Now we move into the actual Christmas story. I didn't plan for it to turn out like this, but we ended up making puppets for each of the characters of the story. We did many, many, many puppet shows with them throughout those two weeks. It totally boosted her knowledge of the Christmas story. A video is coming...
Z is for Zechariah. Aria enjoyed being this puppet when he could no longer talk!
E is for Elizabeth. We used a puff ball for her baby and Aria had fun making the baby leap when Mary came to visit.
A is for Angel. This was my favorite puppet with a gold sparkly dress and white feather wings. We counted, angels appear in the Christmas story 7 times.
M is for Mary. Jesus' mom on earth. Enough said.
J is for Joseph. Jesus' earthly father.
T is for Trip. We looked at a map of Nazareth to Bethlehem and talked about how far it was. It is about the distance from where we live to my hometown, so that was an easy way to explain it to Aria. And of course we did puppet shows.
K is for King. I struggled with not doing J is for Jesus, but decided I needed Joseph in the story and we could talk about Jesus as the King of Kings. We made a baby Jesus puppet with a crown. We talked about leaving Heaven and becoming poor.
Here is our puppet show from our Christmas celebration as a family of three using all the above characters (warning: quite long):
U is for Under the star. This was for the star the shepherds saw above Bethlehem when Jesus was born. We made a big, shiny star.
L is for Light of the world. We added a little key chain light to the tail of our star and hung it above our nativity scene and shined it on Jesus. We also started learning John 8:12, "Jesus said, 'I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in the darkness, but will have the light of life."
It is kind of hard to see the light at the bottom and I will explain the cross in a minute, but this was a hit addition to our nativity this year.
P is for Pray. Now we moved into Jesus' time on earth and our relationship with Him. He taught us how to pray. We spent some time praying.
Q is for Quote. Another way we can talk to Jesus is to read the Bible and memorize the verses. We continued practicing our new verse and reviewed several of the ones we already know.
W is for Worship. We talked about how it feels good to get compliments and that God wants us to praise Him. We talked about what we could praise Him for and then we sang worship songs. This was a day where I was struggling with some stress and it felt so good to worship my King and give it all to Him. Amazing how God works in our lives.
F is for Friends. Jesus wants us to love God and love others (that is our preschool verse). So, we loved on a few of Aria's friends and made them some homemade play doh and delivered it as Christmas presents.
C is for Cross. The whole reason Jesus came to earth as a baby at Christmastime was to die on the cross for our sins. I hit this hard this year and I think Aria understood. We made a cross and used alpha beads to put Jesus' name on it. When we were trying to find a place for it, we thought of attaching it to the star above the nativity to remember that was why He came. (See star picture)
V is for Victory. We read the story of Jesus' resurrection and talked about how he won over death. We had to explain what victory was by comparing it to playing a game and winning. We did this letter on the same day as...
H is for Heaven. We read the Jesus Storybook Bible story of Revelation and John's description of Heaven. Then we drew pictures of what we thought Heaven would look like. We talked about going there someday. This was done as a family and was really fun!
Y is for You. We reviewed all the things we did for these A to Z activities and read the very last part of the JSB where it says that "it is your story, too." We talked about how much Jesus loves each of us and did all of those things in the Bible because of His love for us.
G is for Give. This was our family of three Christmas celebration day. We incorporated this into our celebration which included a puppet show, opening a present from God that was baby Jesus and a cross, and picking out presents for Jesus from the Samaritan's Purse catalog. We also give each other three gifts at Christmas, which match the wise men gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
And that is the end of our "Christmas is Jesus A to Z." It was excellent for where we were at this year. I would totally do it all again, but then again I never do the exact same thing when it comes to special learning and activities.
Aria is part of the "Little Praises" choir at our church, which is for 3-5 year olds. Last Sunday they sang for all three services of big church. It was an event she was looking forward to for many weeks. My girl loves to sing and she isn't afraid of the big stage. One of the pastors posted a picture on Facebook of all the choirs and said "Children performing at NCBC this morning. Great singing, but off the chart cute factor!" I couldn't agree more!
Oh and a big bonus from getting to do what she loves every week is learning about Jesus through song and gaining confidence to use the gifts He gave her for His glory!
Okay, so I'm having trouble putting the video in here so you will have to click the link to watch!
When Aria turned three she became eligible for our church's littlest children's choir, Little Praises. It is for kids age three to five. We knew Aria loved to sing and would love being a part of the choir. We also knew it would take some getting used to going to the practices on Wednesday evenings without mom and dad. We eased into it by standing in the back of the room for the practices for the first few weeks. It only took about three or four times and she absolutely loved it! They finally had their first performance on the big stage in big church a couple of weeks ago. Aria was so psyched for it! They sang in all three services; Jesus Loves Me each time. It was beyond adorable, as you can see in the video below. After the first service they had breakfast for the kids and a Veggie Tales movie to kill the time until the next service. Aria thought that was pretty awesome, too. I didn't think she liked Kool-Aid until I saw this:
Pretty much guzzled without coming up for air. Sprinkle donuts added to the sugar high, so I was glad they offered to take my kid for a movie so I could enjoy the church service. It was a really fun day and Aria was already asking when she got to sing on the big stage again. She was definitely disappointed Little Praises doesn't meet in the summer. I absolutely love to hear her sing and I am so thankful for a church that takes advantage of that love to help little ones learn more about Jesus!
For some reason it wouldn't upload, so here is a link to the video of the performance: http://youtu.be/4lOwawJTMfA
The angle isn't the best, but the cuteness is still spectacular!
One of my new favorite children's books is The Three Trees by Elena Pasquali. There are actually many different versions, but the link is the one we have checked out from the library. I heard about it from a friend and I sort of copied her idea. A little. In the book, each tree has a dream of what it wants to become someday. A very natural question to ask your child while reading is, "what do you want to be when you grow up?" I thought I might have to explain the question a bit more to Aria, but she had an answer right away.
"I want to be a teacher." A girl after her mom's heart!
"What would you like to teach?"
"I want to teach about songs and how to dance and be silly."
"So, kind of like a music teacher?"
"Yeah!!" (with enthusiasm)
Honestly, knowing my daughter and her character and personality at three, I couldn't think of a better occupation for her. I imagine she was describing her music class teacher from our Music Together classes. We learn songs, fun hand motions, and silly dances. She loves the class and really admires her teacher. I could totally see her doing that someday! Of course, we've got a few years and I'm sure many mind changes ahead of us. But I love seeing how Aria pictures herself in the future. It gave me even more insight into the music-loving child I already knew.
Also, back to the book, it is incredible! The three trees are chopped down. One becomes the manger for Jesus, one becomes the ship Jesus was on when he told the storm to "Be still," and the last becomes the cross. It is a fabulous book! Check it out and read it to your kids!!!!!!!!!
This post is long overdue, but oh well. One of the last activities we did with our Resurrection Eggs this year, was Jesus ascending to Heaven in the clouds. There were cotton balls in her egg and as we were reading the story, an idea popped into my head. We should make a picture of Jesus in the clouds. Aria thought it was a great idea, mostly because it involved glue. We had to use a glue stick and Elmer's. I asked her what paper we should use and she suggested blue like the sky. Then she said, "Maybe you could cut out a yellow circle for the sun." I thought that was good thinking. So, we put our popsicle stick Jesus in the sky and added some clouds. Aria really enjoyed covering Jesus with the clouds. She wanted to make sure every inch of him was covered. It was a fun, last minute activity for both of us!
We went to a wonderful Good Friday service at our church last night. We sang, watched a sketch, sat by our friends, and heard a message. All three of us heard a message. Here is how I know.
This morning our egg held a strip of cloth to represent what they wrapped Jesus' body in before placing him in the tomb. We read the story about him dying on the cross again in the Jesus Storybook Bible (I might have mentioned I love this Bible). The picture on the page right after Jesus died shows three crosses. Aria said, "Look! There's Jesus and those two other guys. One of them liked Jesus and the other one didn't. We learned about that last night!"
I sat there for a minute. Last night? Last night? Sometimes Aria says yesterday or last night for things that happened a lot further in the past, so I was thinking hard about when we learned about the three crosses.
Oh! It was last night! Pastor Bob's message at the Good Friday service included the conversation between Jesus and the two criminals he was crucified next to. One of them believed in Him and the other one didn't. Aria was listening to the message. It blew my mind. I know she picks up on things, but sometimes you can't tell if she is actually paying attention. I guess she was last night.
This Easter season has been filled with learning for Aria and for me as I watch her piece things together. I am so thankful to be a part of a church that has messages even a three year old can understand and that cares so much about the spiritual growth of everyone.
Earlier this week, Aria found a washcloth in her egg. She didn't think it belonged in there, but soon discovered it was a essential to our daily story about Jesus.
When Jesus washed his disciples feet, it wasn't so much about cleaning feet as it was about cleansing souls. That lesson is a bit beyond Aria, so we stuck with the Jesus Storybook Bible's text, which I love.
"Jesus and his friends were having the Passover meal together in an upstairs room. But Jesus' friends were arguing. What about? They were arguing about stinky feet. Stinky feet? Yes, that's right. Stinky feet.
"Now the thing about feet back then was that people didn't wear shoes; they only wore sandals, which might not sound unusual, except that the streets in those days were dirty--and I don't mean just dusty dirty--I mean really stinky dirty. With all those cows and horses everywhere, you can imagine the stuff on the street that ended up on their feet!
"So, anyway, someone had to wash away the dirt, but it was a dreadful job. Who on earth would ever dream of volunteering to do it? Only the lowliest servant."
We went over this story in our middle school small groups a couple of weeks ago, too. The middle schoolers were quite disgusted when they actually pictured walking the streets through poop and mud with only sandals on (or maybe not even that). It definitely made an impact.
The story continues as Jesus begins to wash all the disciples feet, but Peter won't let him. Then comes my favorite part:
"Jesus knew that what people needed most was to be clean on the inside. All the dirt on their feet was nothing compared to the sin inside their hearts."
They had disgusting animal poop on their feet, but that was nothing compared to the sin inside their hearts. And these were the disciples!
The text ends with the best segue to our little activity.
"One by one, Jesus washed everyone's feet. 'I am doing this because I love you,' Jesus explained. 'Do this for each other."
So, I washed Aria's feet. She definitely enjoyed it and also wanted to stomp around in the bowl of water. Then she asked, "Who is going to wash your feet, Mom?"
What a great question! She was excited to wash my feet and wanted to wash my legs, too.
As I said before, the whole making yourself the lowest servant and cleansing the soul is a little too deep yet for her. But she will tell you that Jesus washed his disciples' feet and that we are supposed to wash each other's feet.
It is all about the hooks we place in her brain now for her to grasp onto as she gains more capacity to understand.
