by Jennie Wintermote, Resource Library Director
In February I started thinking about the approaching Lent/Easter season, and how we’d observe this holy season with our daughter. Last year she experienced her first morning home from the hospital Easter morning. After 16 days in the hospital, it was a day filled with indescribable joy in the God of miracles. A year later, she’s active, alert, and taking in the world around her in new ways every day. What can we (and the church) teach her about the Easter faith and the God of miracles?
Really, this question isn’t unique…or shouldn’t be. Shouldn’t we always be asking how we can share the Easter faith with those near and dear to us? And asking how can we share it with those we see every day? Those we live with and work with? Those we see in the yard, down the street, and on the bus?
Carolyn C. Brown writes in Sharing the Easter Faith with Children that for “adults Easter means life after death and new life now” but for children the Good News takes on different and more concrete meanings. It’s Good News that God is more powerful than any “bad guy” and that Jesus is with us always. It is our job–as parents, neighbors, as friends–to consider the Good News of our Easter faith and to tell “the stories in ways that are Good News [to the listener] where they are and, in the process, lay the foundations for growing understanding and deepening faith.”
So, think about it, talk about it, and read about it. What is your Easter faith and how do you share it with those around you?
If you need a place to start or a way to deepen your understand, check out Brown’s book or one of the hundreds of other books, DVDs, and more at the Resource Library! Stop by or contact the library to request items mailed to you. The library is located at 2517 N. Main in North Newton, KS. (316)283-6300 or crlib@mennowdc.org