Ann Voskamp's Blog, page 308

If You Want to Start Your Holy Week off Well {A Holy Week: Day 1}

My Grandma, she told me if you found a man who'd weep over a story — that was a man you could marry.

The morning of Palm Sunday, the porridge boils over and burns on the stove.

Hope tries on three dresses, slumps into the kitchen and declares she has nothing to wear. Shalom can't find her pink hair bow — only a blue one that's missing the barrette. Caleb points out that someone's dropped their orange peels all down the back garage steps.

I'm strangling down a frustrated rant.

Malakai, reaching for milk for his porridge, slips off his chair and splits his lip right open on the edge of the table.

There is blood dripping on our kitchen floor on Palm Sunday.

And on the kitchen table, there's a bent silhouette carrying a cross.

He's nearing the Story's climax.

Twice, Jesus weeps in the Story.      

When He saw where death had laid out Lazarus, when he saw his friend's tomb, when he stood with the crying Mary, His Spirit moved like over face of the waters, and water ran down the face of God.

That's what Grandma had said: A man who can break down and cry — is man who will break open his heart to let your heart in. 

Jesus wept.

He had loved Lazarus.

Our God is the God to find comfort in because ours is the God who cries… the God tender enough to break right open and let His heart run liquid and He is the river of life because He knows our heart streams. One day He will wipe all tears away because He knows how the weeping feel:  He has loved us.

I hold a crying Malakai and his bloody lip on a messy Palm Sunday and our tears and love mingles with God's.

Palm Sunday –  the second time in the Story when the pain breaks Him and when the palm branches wave, our God weeps:  When Jesus approached Jerusalem, "he wept over it and said, 'If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace…"

If only you had known what would bring you peace…

You want comfort — and I offer you a Cross.

You want position — and I offer you purpose.

You want ease — and I offer you eternity.

God cries because His people cry for things that won't bring them peace.

The people that praise Him quiet on Palm Sunday on the way into the city — are the same crowd that cry "Crucify" loud on Good Friday when it doesn't go their way.

And I am the woman who praises Him quiet when it goes my way — and who complains loud when it doesn't.

This is what happens when God doesn't meet expectations. When God doesn't conform to hopes, someone always goes looking for a hammer.

I can bang my frustration loud.

The Pastor would say it on Sunday — that the people's Hosanna was a cry that literally meant "Save us! Save us!"

Jesus weeps because we don't know the peace that will save us. What brings us peace is always praise.

There are donkey days and I'm the fool who doesn't recognize how God comes. God enters every moment the way He chooses and this is always the choice: wave a palm or a hammer.

How many times have I wondered how they could throw down their garments before Him on Sunday and then throw their fists at Him on Friday? But I'm the one in the front row:

If my thanksgiving is fickle, then my faith is fickle.

I stroke Malakai's forehead. Press mine to his.

"Can we just go to church now, Mama?" Malakai murmurs it, takes the cloth from his lip and I see the wound. I wipe his wet cheek.

I hold him. Just hold him long on Palm Sunday morning, with these tears on the fingertips. Ready for praise on the lips. Keeping company with the Christ who cries, His heart broken wide open to let us in.

And I nod, "Yes, yes… let's." And he slides off my lap.

And we walk out the door for church on Palm Sunday, waving this brazen, unwavering thanks.

Waving it before the Christ walking right there with the palms open wide.

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Print April's Joy Dare and begin this holy week — this month — right! Count three gifts a day, 1000 gifts in 2012 (and be entered to win the NikonD90 camera?) Thank-you is a word that can change you, your world – the whole world!

And a happy new surprise for April:

Each day of April, 3 people who share their 1000 gifts Joy Dare for the day, one on Twitter {label with #1000gifts #JoyDare so we can find you!}, one sharing their gifts in the gratitude community at Facebook , and one on Pinterest (#1000gifts), will be randomly selected & entered into a drawing for a gift card @ Amazon {100$} & joy-in-a-box {signed copies of One Thousand Gifts, the photographic gift book, the DayBrightner, and the family gratitude journal} Give thanks to Him in the assembly!

#3340 – #3348 of my own one thousand gifts … of unwavering thanks for His love… 

Palm Sunday and singing boys :: faithful pastors studying Scripture to bring the Word :: cleaning house & hearts this week ::  the grace of this :: the return of the daffodils :: guests for dinner & candles lit :: friends who keep the faith and the prayers :: the hard eucharisteos everyday & unwavering thanks to the Jesus who knows what brings, weeps for me to know what brings peace… praise, praise, praise.

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Join us? And happily change everything by keeping your own crazy list of One Thousand Gifts?

Please, jump in, make your life about giving thanks to God! — Just add the direct URL to your specific 1000 gift list post… and if you join us, we humbly ask that you please help us find each other in our refrain of thanks by sharing the community's graphic within your post.

Give thanks to the Lord! His Love Endures Forever!

 

Click here to download a free Easter Devotional : A Trail to the Tree {please give it a few moments to download… thank you for grace!}

weekends are for new beginnings

For  leftover remnants cupping new things,

for for clutches of hope, there in the light,

for fragile promises,

that if believed in,

might just fly,

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Abundant blessings on your weekend, friends!

:All is grace



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Beauty for the Weekend : On a Saturday morning… look out across a new week coming, a week focused on new life and resurrection coming! Slow and see the intricate wonder of this…  Go slow enough to really marvel that — Behold, He makes all things new.

Creative Inspiration for the Weekend :  Now, doesn't this inspire to slow down, right in the midst, and begin seeing – ah, to take time today and grab pencil! And my, oh my, to create the beauty of a journal like this! What if a journal was left out and a whole family sketched their joy finds? {You're making happy time everyday to be creative, yes?}

Kitchen Love for the Weekend :  Thinking this week on oh, how He loves us…  this recipe might be perfect to make up?

Free Printable for the Weekend : Here's a beautiful one for the mantle this week 

Kid Fun on the Weekend : Ah, to find a resurrection-focused gift bag! Here's a free printable Easter Cross bag — perfect for tucking a bit of joy in to celebrate this coming week?

Clean for the Weekend: Clean Calm with the kids  this week as we prepare for week of deep reflection– just loveliness! … (and then if I can find these cases, the kids and I are going to do this with all the card games here — genius!)

Laughter on the Weekend :  What's one moment that might make one person you love feel like this? jot it down and go do it!

Gift for the Weekend: A Perfect little vintage mail package to wrap some joy up for someone: The loveliness of these vintage bird tags  or these so very pretty bird silhouettes free for the printing for a card or tag? And tuck in a  vintage bookmark? All put together with one of these printable vintage envelopes?

{And there's still that happy sale happening over at Family Christian offering a sweet little sale of 50% off of One Thousand Gifts, until April 5th.  And too, CBD has One Thousand Gifts for half price. Might be a beautiful way of celebrating the joy of Easter this spring with a friend?}{and, yes, ma'am, there's a bevy of free printables to go along with it, to make your own gratitude journal or one for a friend, a bit of happy joy-in-a-box? Thank you for grace.}

Amazon.com WidgetsHeart Turning for the weekend : A long held family tradition here: To listen to the 12 Voices of Easter @ Back to the Bible … listen as you love together today?

Worship for the weekend The laying low grace of this… singing it quietly this week as we turn to Palm Sunday… to never get over this.

Appalling grace, this weekend, friends… 

 

Click here to download a free Easter Devotional : A Trail to the Tree {please give it a few moments to download… thank you for grace!}

Why Be Crazy Enough to Homeschool?

Why be crazy enough to homeschool?

So a series of questions land in the inbox for a print article on homeschooling, asking how a Christian family makes educational choices for their family? {Why would anyone really be crazy enough to homeshool?}… And I smile and nod… and tentatively, prayerfully, attempt to meander through some of these queries…. but only with no small trembling, and this very tentative humble preface:

I don't write specifically about homeschooling often, as I'm not an expert and I'm very concerned that the topic can sadly be divisive and too we are still deeply in process … by His grace, still growing, changing.

So to say from the outset, that I do not think in any way that homeschooling makes a family virtuous — and there are a myriad of very good educational choices.

Homeschooling is not a formula for perfection, nor is homeschooling a panacea for all the sin in this world.

We're all messy and fallen and sin-scraped. We and our children are born sinners.

Homeschooling will not fix any of that. Only Jesus and His grace can.

It's scary to share that we homeschool.

But it's part of who we are and I am praying for your grace, in just taking us anyways. And we're all big, gracious folks here. Learning from each other, knowing we are all called differently, but all for the singular purpose of His Glory.

May  we all be gracious and supportive of educational choices? Mamas are all just really trying and need so much encouragement.

Three of my closest personal friends, all ardent Christ-followers, have each chosen the public school route; please know that I answer these questions only because of reader queries — so this is descriptive of our lives, not prescriptive for anyone else. I humbly and fully believe that Father Himself leads each family…With that preface, seven quick questions… with some not so quick thoughts…. ~warm smile~

1. When & why did you initially decide to home school?

I was a third year university student, taking a concurrent degree in Education and Child Psychology, when I began to consider the possibility of home education for our future family. Sitting in child development classes, studying how a child needs a close attachment with his or her parents, especially before the age of ten, if they are to emotionally thrive through adolescence, I began to question whether it was best to be separated from young children for the majority of their waking hours.

I came to agree with Dr. Neufeld who writes that the problem today is that 'parenthood is no longer lasting as long as childhood' — that our children need parents to be intimately involved, moment-by-moment, not till they are only four years old and leave home for school and possible peer dependency, but they need us to be parents until they are fourteen years old and older…. "We need to hold on to our children and help them hold on to us. We need to hold on to them until our work is done," writes Dr. Neufeld "We need to hold on, not to hold them back but so that they can venture forth."

For us, forging a deep attachment to parents was a key factor in our decision, so that children had a strong foundation for their own sense of self, saw parents as more important than peers, and as we modeled the preeminence of God in our lives, our children could see too how to live out that faith model.

Was there a way to home educate that could nurture whole, innovative, creative, well-read, skilled young persons who were passionate Kingdom builders and people lovers? That was the environment we sought to foster. Where two or three are gathered, there He is also.

What I love most about the homeschooling lifestyle is that we are all together, in all our glorious mess, day in and day out. We are not time-torn or fragmented. We are gathered. There is no dichotomy between God and secular: we are making a one-piece life. This works for us.

We are real, transparent, and growing –sometimes painfully– with each other, season upon season, and God is in the center, bathing us sin-scraped ones with His Grace. That's rich.

2. What does a typical school day look like for you?



Ah… we're a bit of glorious mess here everyday!

While we generally don't have schedules, per se, we prefer to do engage in a daily rhythm, an expected routine, an everyday liturgy that is fluid… Our quotidian harmony (that, now and then, definitely does shriek off tune!)



So times stated are general (in my attempt to tend to this flock instead of being driven by the clock), while the length of time for each string of notes is a valiant attempt at consistency:

5:30 am: 6 children rise and chore in the barn with the Farmer

8:30 am: Eat breakfast as a family

9:00 am: Collective Bible reading, hymns, memorization, prayer … then clean-up

9:30 — 12:30 am:

Two Middle children (11 and 13): do mental gymnastics: Latin, Math, Grammar, Spelling, history readings, Music practice — coming for helps as needed, using a Veritas Press curriculum

Two Youngest Children (6 and 9): We work together on Phonics, handwriting, Spelling, Math, Latin, Story Circle, Art.

Two Oldest Children (14 and 16): Independently and daily Math and Latin, then work on their classes with Veritas Press Scholars Academy — Omnibus (Theology, Literature, History), Rhetoric, Latin, Chemistry, Art, Omnibus Secondary, Economics, Business, and several electives from The Potter's School –  checking in with their real-time, live classes, interacting with their teachers and fellow classmates via computer microphones and doing their homework and readings

12:30 — 1:30 pm: Family Noon Meal — close again with Bible readings and prayer — try to clean up our messes

2:00 pm — 3:30 pm: Exploring Time with 4 youngest:

Tea and literature read alouds including poetry, reading, and art appreciation. Then reading a wide spectrum of books that lead us deeper into Geography, Nature and Science, History, Theology — just simply reading a stack of books.

We explore intriguing side trails as we read, check out our Everyday Learning Links– Checking out Today in History, Today's Word of the Day, The Last 24 Hours in Pictures around the World, The Bird of the Day…. sparking curiosity about the world right now and all around us! God is in it! And then googling what we've read to understand more, you-tubing for a relevant video to get an on-the-ground sense of something, grabbing another book off the shelf that fleshes something else out a bit more.

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As a mama-teacher, I approach all the readings as a co-discoverer with an insatiable appetite to learn more. I'm exploring with the kids and I'm excited every day about we're finding out together!  It's not perfect — but it is contagious!

3:30 pm — 4:00 pm: Piano practice, knitting, working in the shop, woodworking, baking, work on history timelines, sketching and drawing in nature journals, go for a walk, cook something in the kitchen, work on a family project — just us, living.

Learning just pervades all time, continuing throughout the evening — kids reading, composing music, working with Farmer Husband in the shed, exploring in the woods, playing games, making dinner in the kitchen.

We don't have a television — or radio, or video games — so perhaps children engage their worlds more fully?

3. How do you ensure that your children get the same, if not better quality education as those in public school?

We once had a couple come visit us from Germany. Homeschooling is not an option in Germany, so they were intrigued by our choice of education for our children: the stacks and stacks of books, the daily reading of Shakespeare, children narrating poetry, singing hymns together at the table, the spontaneous creativity that was happening — and the noise levels and the happy spin to our days, the way life and learning and laundry just fold into each other.

And at the end of the week, they wanted to know: How else could children learn like this, with all these books?

In a home we have the advantage of getting the best books out of the library. Of low-teacher to child ratios, of google and research at the fingertips of every child, if need be. We can pile close on the couch together to read those books, to check out that youtube video on the Rock of Gibraltar. In a classroom with 25 students, the logistics of great books, and easy internet access for each student get trickier. I really believe that a curious mother and a library card can offer a stellar education.

Ultimately, for us, a quality education focuses on commitment, of both the learner and the teacher. A commitment by both parties to authenticity, joy, curiosity, and consistency. These elements of an education then translate into necessary, future life-skills

For us that means living:



Authentically.

Live your life. Invite your children to join you! Read together. Pray together. Sing together. Work, bake, garden, chore, clean, sew, fix, build together. Don't fabricate artificial demarcation lines between schooling and living. Live a one-piece life. Live holistically.

Joyfully.

Explore! Be awed by His World! Restore Wonder! Be a creative, thinking, exuberant person who spills with the joy of learning. Your zest for learning and life will be contagious–the children will catch it!

Curiously.

Read, read, read. Fill the house with library books. Play classical music. Post the art of the masters about the house. Go for walks in the woods. Learn a new language, a new culture, a new poem. Everyday set out to discover again, and again, and again. The whole earth is full of His glory! Go seek His face…

Consistently.

Consistently pray. Consistently read. Consistently keep the routine. Consistently live an everyday liturgy.

Children thrive in routine. So do households. Have hardstops: times that you fully stop to pray, to read, to write. Regardless of what isn't done, what isn't finished. Make a full stop, do the needful thing, then return to meals, laundry, household management.

Consistently be consistent.



That's all. The curriculum doesn't really matter, so much. Use what works for you, how He leads you.

Just make it part of your real life, make it a joy, make it a discovery, and prayerfully make it consistent.

4. What are some downfalls of home schooling, in your opinion, and what are some ways of making up for them?



So true: whichever choice we make, there are advantages and disadvantages.

Whichever educational choice we make, we choose a whole lifestyle.



No doubt, homeschooling comes with pitfalls, ones we've intimately wrestled with….

There needs to be consistency, consistency, consistency.

We are responsible for creating the scaffolding for children to climb. That takes daily intentionality and prayerful self-discipline.

Our commitment needs to be intrinsic and for some, that can be a challenge — but a mama who is struggling in that area can set up accountability with her husband, a friend, another teaching-mama. Homeschooled children need to learn about deadlines and goals and time management — and that too can be a challenge when educating at home. We're daily working on these things, failing and falling into grace, and beginning again. And again, formulating together some agreed upon standards with built-in accountability is paramount.

But much more critically, I believe, a very real concern for of the potential for home-educating families  to create hothouses of weak plants that can't withstand the winds of this world.

When our home environment is Christian and our social circles are primarily (or exclusively) Christian, what makes our children vigilant in their faith? What makes them put down deep, deep roots?

We personally don't believe that children are called to be kingdom warriors in the public school system because, in our humble, and very possibly misguided opinion, that doesn't seem a level playing field. There are agendas operating there that may leave a child at a disadvantage. But do we need to walk with our children in the world with a vibrant, fearless faith that has full confidence in an all-powerful God? Yes!



If we are going to home-educate, we are going to need to be proactive in engaging the world. As homeschoolers, we can't create our own self-protective ghettos so our safe Christian children may just meet and marry another safe and good Christian to have their own safe and good Christian family. God didn't call us to that! He called us to love a lost and hurting world.

We may be homeschoolers, but we can't stay at home! If we're going to home-educate, we need to find ways to be in the world, to serve the world, to live a BIG RADICAL FAITH in this world… But not be of the world. Daily we need to be intentionally asking and living: How can we reach out to our neighbors, the hurting kid around the corner, our non-believing uncle, our community at large?



(Related: Reb Bradley speaks profoundly to the pitfalls of homeschooling and how to advert them

Wise Katherine @ Raising Five who once homeschooled and now doesn't wrote a deeply thoughtful post that I return to often: Sheltering is not a Place but a Relationship )

5. What are some downfalls of the public school system?

While I think the public school has some very real advantages over home education — discipline, deadlines, sports programs, some technical and highly skilled programs — and it works tremendously  well for some families, for us, the downfalls are simply inherent to what public school is: perhaps an artificial fragmentation of life?

Separating children from siblings, from family, their natural community, homes, faith and environment to instead be grouped in a rather institutionalized space with possible agendas that may be disconnected from community and family values, that marks time with bells… perhaps this could potentially disconnect young people from the real world and real family relationships?

And possibly, in some instance, may not be most conducive to fostering a whole-hearted person whose faith, family, work, and service is all woven into a cloth of one-piece.

For us, an integrated life before God, is perhaps experienced and cultivated and expressed in the crazy wonder of educating at home?

6. What are your dreams for your children, scholastically?



Scholastically, our aim for our children asks the same question that esteemed educator A Charlotte Mason asked: "The question is not, 'how much does the youth know?' when he has finished his education––but how much does he care?

And about how many orders of things does he care? In fact, how large is the room in which he finds his feet set?"

We believe that whatever we do, we need to do it wholeheartedly as unto the Lord. Right now, learning about God and His world is our children's full-time work. That means: education is a priority and it will be engaging work that requires real effort.

But that doesn't necessarily translate into them aiming towards traditional careers. It means we simply pursue the beginning of knowledge which is the fear of the Lord.

Do they care about God?

Do they love people?

Are their feet set in the large, large world as salt and light?



It means that we pursue not a cultural definition of success but of true greatness for our kids: "having an unquenchable passion for God that manifests itself in an unwavering love and concern for others" (Tim Kimmel, Raising Kids for True Greatness)

7. How long do you plan to home school them for, and why?

In fear and trembling, we plan to homeschool, Lord willing, throughout highschool…. Yet we do that in a supportive, large homeschooling community that offers a myriad of resources that makes it possible to have top-notch online teachers in classes with students all over the globe.

And why would we continue?

Because homeschooling is this magnificent crucible, to reveal impurities and sinfulness and brokenness.

It keeps us on our knees. Homeschooling often hurts and disappoints.

You cry and wonder if you are insane to try to educate these children, to disciple these little hearts, while laundering, cooking, cleaning, managing a household, and still being a wife, a sister, a daughter, a missionary in your community, a servant to Christ and in your faith community. And He smiles and say that He walks with you, has grand and glorious purposes, and He understands radical and crazy!



Homeschooling is about going higher up and deeper in, for you learn to sacrificially love in ways you have never loved before. You come to know your own heart in ways you never imagined, the souls of your children in intimate, very real ways.

For you will be together, making memories together, laughing together, crying together, praying together, and asking forgiveness together. Throughout your day, you worship God, together. And you learn to die-to-self together. It's about doing hard things… together. And there will be no fragmentation of learning, home-life, friends, work, God.

We keep homeschooling to weave a one-piece life – hallowed threads of parenting, love, pain, education, growing, stumbling, creativity, forgiveness, wonder, sacrifice, and God all woven together.

We wear it, and it's not perfect and it's messy — but oh, it's a good fit for us!

Grace, Joy, Gratitude.

Related Links:

More Glimpses into our Homeschool Room: How to make a Learning Space

Seven Things We do Everyday to Holistically Homeschool

If you are considering homeschooling– perhaps read this post?

Resource: The Lord Is My Strength – Vinyl Wall Art

 

edited text from the archives to make current

 

The Photo Glimpses into our recent discovery days:

Hope wrapped up under a tree studying history:Veritas Press History Cards: Explorers to 1815::Levi working on history timelines {We chart the events from the free 100 Pivotal Events in History and our Veritas Press History events on this timeline, that includes the Biblical Genesis: The Wallchart of World History: From Earliest Times to the Present } :: nature study :: Levi's boat carving :: Read Aloud from 1955 Newberry Medal Winner: The Wheel on the School :: Joshua's painting of a Roman Soldier :: dogwoods in the wood with Shalom :: more timeline work :: Malakai's (8 yrs old) self-portrait :: Hope reading outside to Shalom :: creek fun :: dinner time in the evening, everyone boisterous around the table

Click here to download a free Easter Devotional : A Trail to the Tree {please give it a few moments to download… thank you for grace!}

Links for 2012-03-29 [del.icio.us]

about the Ideology of Photoshopped Magazine Covers:

@The Gospel Coalition Blog... "Rather than hoping for agelessness and resisting the marks of time on our faces and bodies, we can hope for resurrection and trust in one who raises the dead. Rather than conforming to the fickle standards of beauty, we can worship the God who knew us before we were born, made us fearfully and wonderfully, and called us "good."
"Unexpected Joy"

@Fotolanthropy Film... Meet the Daily family? Absolutely beautiful and lived out truth, this...
{free printable} ponder the path

@contentedsparrow ... ah this verse. Yes!
What is love really?

@ Elizabeth Foss ... This post has been staying with me for days.

when you are looking for His steadying hand

That is what came at the end.

At the end of the day, after the pots soaked in the sink and the books and the remnants of the day stacked high in baskets.

After she washed the eggs and threaded that needle for her mama doing up mending.

After the raucous and rowdy finally stilled and the pansies drowsed heavy out under that Big  Dipper swinging high.

That is what came to her sitting there on the far edge of grace.

That when she needed His hand, she only had to reach out with a hymn.

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Related Post: Best Advice for Hard TimesClick here to download a free Easter Devotional : A Trail to the Tree {please give it a few moments to download… thank you for grace!}

Links for 2012-03-28 [del.icio.us]

Garden Inspiration!

@Huffington Post... "With a little creativity, vision and willingness to get our hands dirty, we can remake spaces defined by asphalt and dead grass into productive places of beauty." Yes!

The Best Easter Dinner {with a Free Printable} {Start a Christian Tradition: Messianic Seder}

I shouldn't have been surprised when the questions came, all these questions rushing like a river searching….

God knew.

He knew how all the kids would ask questions.

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All the kids asking questions — wasn't that the prophesy?

"When your children ask their fathers in the time to come…'" (Joshua 4:21).

And He prophesied our answers to all their questions: "And you shall tell your son in that day, saying, 'This is done because of what the LORD did for me… (Exodus 13:8).

Come an eve in early spring, when the trees are budding and the birds nesting high, all the rivers running higher, Jewish children gather around feast tables and they ask the same four age-old questions; questions that answer everything.

Our children ring the old oak farm table and take up the tradition of the quartet of questions.

Keeping "this ordinance in its season from year to year," (Exodus 13:10), I lay the Passover emblems out on the table in the early twilight.

The matzah lies under a linen cloth.

Goblets of juice of the vine flicker in the candle light, sprigs of lush green parsley circle a tray, water drops jewelling leaf tips.

Off to the side, behind the crystal bowls heaped with mashed potatoes and glazed baby carrots, a dish of ground horseradish sits beside a dark, heavy shank bone of lamb. Not our usual fare for a spring evening meal.

Weary and worn from the all-day effort, I have my own questions: Is all this business of keeping Passover unnecessary burden?

Have we knotted the holy day up in redundant encumbrances?

Does this old covenant really have bearing on new covenant living?

Slipping my hand through my husband's, I find answers.

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Children pressing in now, anxious for just this, this tradition, this meal before candles, this sipping of goblets.

"This, this is the best Easter dinner ever! Passover!" a son smiles down the table at me — "No — this is my favorite meal of the whole year!"

And the questions now trickle, the same four questions that have come rippling down from one generation, to the next, for centuries; from the children of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob….to our children.

Levi, his young voice pitched high but gentle, asks the first of the three-thousand-year-old queries:

"Why are we eating unleavened bread, or matzah, tonight?"

I pick up the matzah, a flat cracker of bread, striped with narrow lines, and pierced with small holes.

And I answer in the only way I know how, "Because tonight we remember Jesus. By whose stripes we are healed. Yeast leavens, or puffs up, as pride and sin inflates our hearts. Tonight we eat unleavened bread, bread without yeast, to remember Jesus who was without sin."

I break the matzah in half and whisper, "Just like He was broken for us."

These are questions to know where we come from.

Hope comes next, slender fingers reaching out towards the horseradish, face contorted in slight grimace,

"Why are we eating bitter herbs?"

Lifting a small, silver spoonful of horseradish, I trace time's prints back.

"For on that long ago night, that night of Passover for the children of Israel, God said that 'bitter herbs they shall eat' (Ex. 12:8) and so we do too. To remember the bitterness of the cruel slavery of the Israelites to Pharaoh, to recall the bitterness of our ugly bondage to sin."

 

My husband breaks off a corner of the matzah, topping it with the spoonful of horseradish and offers it to Hope.

"But we eat the bitter herbs with the matzah to remember how Jesus, our Bread of Life, has paid the price and absorbed our bitter sins."

This is the telling of the story that answers the human heart's pleas… and prayers.

Joshua, he's got his question memorized, him joining with children around the world, asking the third question on this night of four questions,

"Why tonight do we dip our herbs twice?"

Picking up the evergreen parsley, I close my eyes to see the answer. My husband speaks quiet. "Our fathers dipped hyssop branches into the blood of the Passover lamb and marked their doorposts." It's tradition now, to pass down this story.

He dips a parsley sprig into the salt water and continues. "As they wept salty tears for their life of slavery, they painted the door lintels with the blood, that the Angel of Death may pass over. For without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sins."

He dips the parsley again, this time into a small glass dish of apple and raisins.

"But now we have hope. Because of the blood shed by the thorns piercing Jesus' brow. Because of the blood from the wounds of the nails, that we, in faith, mark on the door of our hearts. Now we wipe away our tears, for we have new life in Christ. We have been rebirthed into His hope."

All around the table, you can see it in their eyes — this relief. I can feel my own.

Caleb, pensive eldest, leans his head on his hand and serves the crowning question:

"Why are we eating this meal reclining?"

I lean into the climax of the story and the traditional answer, it never gets old.

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"Because our Passover Lamb has bought our freedom.

"Tonight we remember that we are no longer slaves, but children of the very King of Kings. Free men, royalty, recline while eating. So, as Jesus who reclined at the Last Supper, we too lean back this night, for we are free to come before God who is upon the Throne."

We raise glasses and toast. And there's the answer as to why we keep Passover.

Keeping Passover isn't about keeping laws and regulations.

Keeping Passover isn't about keeping our burdens.

Keeping Passover isn't about keeping some empty, meaningless customs.

On the night of four questions, the answer murmur clear in the stream of time: Keeping Passover is about keeping our way on The Way.

Passover is about keeping something worth preserving: emblems pregnant with the fulfillment of the New Covenant.

Passover is about the questions that keep time to the beat of our children's heart:

Why am I here?

What does all of this living really mean?

Where am I headed?

When will I be all that I am to be?

And this story, His story, His three-thousand-year-old Passover story has answers, told on a quiet evening in spring when the trees are budding under nesting birds.

When all the rivers run alive and swift and on forever, free…

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To Set a Table for a Christian Passover:

1. matzah (or Wholewheat Unleavened Bread)

2. juice of the vine (wine, grape juice, non-alcoholic wine)

3. sprigs of lush green parsley

4. horseradish (bitter herbs)

5. chopped apples and raisins (called haroset)

6. heavy shank bone of lamb

7. boiled egg

8. small dish of salted water

Menu:

Roast Leg of Lamb with Rosemary



Balsamic Roasted Red Potatoes

Baked Asparagus with Balsamic Butter Sauce

Haroset (Chopped Apples & Raisins) for Passover

Wholewheat Unleavened Bread

Baby carrots

And for dessert: New Life

{Free Christian Passover Meal Printable}

Including Menu, Passover Table Setting List and Program with Four Questions with Life Answers {A Messianic Seder}

Sample Pages:

{Click here to Print Complete Document (6 pages)}

Related:

A Whole Family Christian Easter Activity : Make a Grace Garden

Free Easter Devotional with Easter Tree {Because Easter's as Significant as Christmas}

Resources:

I AM – Messianic Passover Seder Plate & Booklet

I AM – Communion / Passover Cup

I AM – Passover / Communion Candle Holders

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Every Wednesday, we Walk with Him, posting a spiritual practice that draws us nearer to His heart.To read the entire series of spiritual practices

Next week, as we walk with Him towards Easter, might we consider: The Practice of Easter. We look forward to your thoughts, stories, ideas….

Today, if you'd like to share with community The Practice of Sacrifice … just quietly slip in the direct URL to your exact post….. If you join us, we humbly ask that you please help us find each other by sharing the community's graphic within your post.

 

Click here to download a free Easter Devotional : A Trail to the Tree {please give it a few moments to download… thank you for grace!}

Links for 2012-03-27 [del.icio.us]

Easter's Coming #1

songs to prepare our hearts for the coming Dawn... "So long, you wages of sin. Go on, don't you come back again
I've been raised and redeemed..." Replaying it here again...
A Slow-Books Manifesto

@The Atlantic ... "Read books. As often as you can.... Aim for 30 minutes a day. You can squeeze in that half hour pretty easily if only, during your free moments..."
In the midst of spring cleaning...

these Tiny Texas houses happily inspire!

When You are Looking for Signs of Joy … {Words for Lent}

The water in the woods, it warms in the sun this week.

The dog plunges right in.

That was the first miracle of the skin bound God: a turning of water into wine.

A spring pond in the woods at the end of March, it's a bit like that —

a turning of water into wine.

The leaves are turning, spinning tender life out of nothing but a promise.<

There are signs everywhere, signs of spring.

The crocuses ripen rich and deep throated.

The dog and the girl and I, we  swallow it all, this ridiculous miracle, the newness of life pressed right out of the dead cold of winter.

When He did that, when He turned the water into something more —  it made it a feast and it made the wedding.

It was a sign too: That He is poured out for our joy. A promised joy, but something more — a present one too.

He is our present joy now, the sap running up through everything, Him turning miracles out of thin air or our wooden hearts.

There are signs everywhere.

Lent draws closer now to the wonders of His love.

There was that too, the first chapel where we passed around one big glass cup.

Passed it from hand to hand on Sunday mornings, remembering the Lord of the Wine.

And the red wine slid down and it burned in the belly, and that was the only time I ever drank the liquid fire. When I remembered His crushing.

When I drank the crushed sweetness straight down, burning with the thanks that can't form words, that just swallows the love straight down.

The pressing out, it can happen at the end of March, at the end of the day, at the end of oneself bent over a sink. Joy miracles, they can happen anywhere and joy is like wine — it can run sweetest in the crushing places.

Wedded bliss can happen anywhere we commit to Him.

He still does that, does it right now, Lord of the Wine, Lord of the Wedding Feast. He's turning all this turning world into something more.

Here in the woods, here in this world, here for all the willing, all a feast  spread with flowers for those who can see.

The dog drinking it all down in these spirited mouthfuls.

The girl with her face lit in the sun.

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 Click here to download a free Easter Devotional : A Trail to the Tree {please give it a few moments to download… thank you for grace!}

Links for 2012-03-26 [del.icio.us]

10 Common Photography Mistakes and How to Fix Them

@ | I Heart Faces
75 Kid Activities

Make it a great week with the kids!
100 Ways to be Kind to your Child

... with a printable version to put on the fridge...
If you are suffering right now...

these tender, wise words... quietly slipped to you with all my prayers...
Peaceful Evening Music #4

@Nordic Chamber Choir - O Magnum Mysterium (M. Lauridsen) ... truly exquisite...