I am starting a challenge for myself for the month of November. Since this is the wonderful month of Thanksgiving, I wanted to take each day to do a blog post of what all I am thankful for in my life. It really helps me to actually sit down and think this month for all that I truly am thankful for!
Today is the 1st of the month and I want to say how thankful I am for being a child of our Jesus Christ! He is awesome and I love serving my Lord. I will be the first to admit, I am not perfect by any means. I make mistakes all the time. I try not to, but no one is perfect so mistakes are going to happen. That is what is so great about our wonderful Lord, that he will forgive us and lead us into the right path. I am so thankful for accepting Jesus Christ into my life back on that fall day in November when I was in the 1st grade. It was an amazing day and so thankful he has steered me back in the right direction for my life and my family!
This has been on my heart all weekend. My family celebrated Halloween this weekend and its so sad that I had to read messages that were trying to question my relationship with my wonderful Lord! First off, we do not celebrate evil. We take this time to celebrate some good ole fashioned fall fun with our families and friends. The girls loved picking out costumes and let me tell you… I got brave for the first time and created M’s costume. Let me show it off to you 🙂
and my beautiful L wanted to dress up as Cinderella. Can you tell she was a little excited?
Mommy and her happy girls!
Do you see any evil? I don’t :). I see some good family fun. We went on Friday night to a Church fall festival in our town and then Saturday we went to our local library and then to our Church Fall O Rama. We had so much fun just letting the girls play great and creative games… then eating lots of good food/candy as well. I promised myself that I ate the last piece of candy tonight.. tomorrow is back to counting points ;). They girls got to hang with their friends and just seeing their smiles was worth it all. We are not bad Christians at all for celebrating this weekend. I do not judge others that do not participate.. that is their wish. I should not be judged either and told that I am not following God’s Holy word. It’s all in the fun and how your family treats it. My family chooses to celebrate it as we do, and the girls have always celebrated it this way. We will in fact continuing celebrating it this way as well.
My good friend Sarah at Real Life posted a blog post about this topic and I wanted to share with you a portion.
How is Carving a Pumpkin Like a Christian?
First, God picks you from the pumpkin patch and brings you in from the field. The Bible says He selects us out of the world. We are in the world, but no longer of the world.
He then washes all the “dirt” off the outside that we received from being around all the other pumpkins. All the outside influences of our former life must be cleaned up. Old things are passed away and all things are become new.
Then, He carefully removes all the “yucky stuff” called “sin” out from the inside. Look at this! Yuk! Sin will not have such internal power. He then changes us from the inside out by the Power of His Word. That’s why it is important to go the church and learn about God’s Word.
He carefully removes all those seeds of doubt, hate, greed, and fear. He replaces them with the seeds of faith, hope and love. After Jesus is invited inside, you begin to experience the changing power of God’s love in your life.
Then He carves a new smiling face. Our countenance is changed by the power of His presence in our life. We then become so grateful. It can even show on our face!
Now we are going to light this candle inside. Look! This pumpkin now reflects the light from inside out. So too, when Jesus, who is called the Son of Light, lives inside of us, He shines through our life for all to see. We can let His light reflect through us to reveal His presence. “Let your light so shine before men that they may be able to see your good works and glorify your Father, who is in heaven.”
So you see, we Christians are really like this pumpkin! We will never be the same with Jesus inside of us. We can say like this jack-o-lantern, “Thy presence, my light!”
Isn’t that awesome? My light is in full presence indeed
I am not going to judge anyone. It all comes down to how your family chooses! How does your family celebrate?
This weekend was just a very fun weekend and I’m so sad to see it come to an end… but we are going to push this great weekend all into the week. Hey… by the way… aren’t my girls just so adorable dressed up?
This post included in Real Life’s Your Life Your Blog!
Jen, you are so precious! I had such a great time hanging with you, and I’m glad I could encourage you!
This is so on target Jen! This topic gets me fired up every Halloween and I have questions I’d really like folks to consider, especially those who are casting the decision that celebrating Halloween is against doctrine. First, can someone please tell me whythose who choose not to participate in traditional Halloween activities are so compelled to call out those who do as devl worshipers or evil? And while explaining that, can someone offer a decent explanation of how taking your children in costumes to a church sponsored Trunk or Treat event is ANY different than having a neighborhood Halloween party, with costumes, and Trick or Treating with your neighbors? This begs the debate, which unfortunately there is debate, about how Christians spend their time…excusively with like minded fellow Christians in a self contained community, or out in their communities at large, participating, modeling, but not judging? I know this is a passionate topic and I’m not looking to fuel the fire. But I tire of the righteousness, exclusivity, and most importnatly the judgement in it all. As always, we remain infinitely mortal in our quest to seek the Lord. I challenge myself daily to choose to be more open…because Lord knows I’m not perfect and its truly impossible for me to have the answers here and now. Thank you for stepping out on this topic =)
Since you’ve asked this, I guess I’ll go ahead and share my thoughts on this.
My family does not celebrate Halloween. We don’t dress up, decorate, go to Trunk or Treat events or go trick-or-treating. Why? Lots of reasons, and not just the whole “glorifying evil” debate. Personally, I’ve always had a problem with Halloween since I was a child, when I witnessed three men try to abduct two young girls in front of our house while they were trick-or-treating. (Thankfully, they were not successful.)
Do I look down on those who do participate? No! Have I gotten grief for not dressing my kids up? Yep, plenty. And it’s frustrating. I don’t appreciate having my parenting choices maligned any more than anyone else. It’s no better than the homeschool vs. public school debate.
My final thoughts? More people would do well to remember a few words of wisdom:
“Why should my freedom be judged by another’s conscience?” – Paul, 1 Corinithians 10:29
“If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.” -Thumper