This is a guest post by one of my amazing in-real-life turned bloggy friends, Kathy from House of Hills:
My family is blessed to attend an amazing church with exceptional children’s programming. A hard working staff and hundreds of volunteers work each week to bring the Bible to life for our kids. Not only that, they equip us as parents to continue impressing the Word into their hearts daily.
This past Easter, we received an “Easter Art Show” kit. It was by far the BEST representation of what Christ did for us on the cross that I’ve ever seen. I was so excited to do it with my Maggie.
They sent us home with instructions, a blank canvas, and simple spackling.
Maggie was very intrigued by the spackling. I mean, a canvas she’d seen before, but she didn’t know what to do with spackling. However, she’d have to wait a few days to play with that.
On Good Friday, we were told to use a marker and write our sins on the canvas. Every member of the family was to write at least two sins on the canvas. Maggie proudly wrote her first one, “disobedience.” Yes, this is something we work on daily at the House of Hills. I think parents everywhere work on it daily.
Maggie got us started and then My Sweetie and I joined in. Soon we had the entire canvas filled with words. Words that signified our sin. It was slightly overwhelming to see our sinful nature staring us in the face. (Which is probably why I didn’t take a picture of it.) All that sin is what Christ gave His life for. All that sin is why we need a Savior.
Once we were done writing, we placed the canvas on the bookcase in the kitchen. We saw our sin every day of Easter weekend. It sat there, out in the open for all to see.
On Easter day, we came home from church to our sin glaring at us from the canvas. But we rejoiced! For Easter day was the day that Jesus rose again! His death had wiped away our sin.
We took the spackling and with our fingers covered every inch of that canvas. The canvas was white again! Our sin no longer haunted us because Jesus, our Savior had died and rose again!
My Sweetie used his fingers to form a cross with the spackling, a reminder of why this canvas was made white again. This canvas has a place of honor in our hall. Each day, we pass it. Each day, we are reminded of the grace, love, and hope we have been given through the cross. Each day, we are reminded that our sin has been wiped clean.
The Easter Art Show created amazing discussion in our house, discussion that continues on a regular basis. While Maggie loved getting her hands messy and covering the canvas with spackling, the true power of the exercise was her greater understanding of Easter. The significance of what Christ’s death meant to her personally hit home. Her sins were being washed away. Hers. Christ died for her.
What have you done to make Christ’s death personal for your children?
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Kathy can be found at the House of Hills sharing life stories, recipes and Disney tips. When not blogging, working or serving, Kathy likes to just “be” with her Sweetie and daughter, Maggie, age 8. |
Wow, Kathy. That is an awesome craft – and I especially love the spackling made into a cross. (Spackling? Spackle? I don’t know. Anyway.) And the thought of staring at my sin, written so boldly on a white canvas? Makes me want to hang my head right here. Thank God for His love and mercy!! (And for cool ideas like this one to teach our kids about it!)
The spackling (that’s what it said on the container – I have no idea what to call it) made it SO REAL. It was the fact that it was white again. They showed it to them at church using something else. I never did find out what it was. But, when they wiped a canvas with it, it went white again. SO POWERFUL!
This is awesome! Well, not the sharing of sins and publicly confessing them (publicly = before my child). But this illustration is so powerful! Thank you for sharing!
Ya, it was hard at first to write them down in front of Maggie, but so totally important that we all show that we are sinners. Mommies and Daddies aren’t any more perfect that little girls. In fact sometimes I think we’re less perfect.
Do you know where they found the supplies as discounted prices? I was wondering how to do this without a big cost.
Just had to look this up for new years! My kids are a little young but we just might do a speedy version of this tonight!