Lent with Claire: understanding sin + our Resurrection Eggs

We're continuing to have some really great conversations with Claire about our observation of Lent. She's asking great questions and making connections between different parts of the Easter story to one another, as well as making connections about things that we do in our daily lives because of the Easter story. 

However.

We had a conversation last week that was pretty telling about her understanding of sin. It went a little something like this:

Erin: What are some examples of sin, Claire?
Claire: Um...disobeying? 
Erin: That's right. And being unkind to Lily. Or saying things that aren't true. Or being ugly and disrespectful to Mommy and Daddy. Everybody does sinful things like this. Every single person except one. There's only be one person who never did those things. Do you know who that was?
Claire: Claire.

We, apparently, have some work to do in that department.

I thought I'd show you the insides of our Resurrection Eggs, in case you were wondering what our process looks like. Again, they're designed to be used in the days leading immediately up to Easter, but we start them at the beginning of Lent so that we can spend a few days on each one. I think it helps with such a young learner to have it repeated so much.

The set of Resurrection Eggs that we are using contains 12 eggs: 11 containing symbols and an empty one.

The contents.

1. Leaf. This one represents Palm Sunday. We sing a "Hosanna" song when we open this one. It's Claire's favorite.

2. Bread (oyster cracker). This represents the Last Supper. 

3. Silver (coins). This represents the money Judas was paid to betray his friend.

4. Purple cloth and thorns. This represents the robe and crown of thorns used to hurt and humiliate Jesus.

5. Whip (rope). This represents the beating Jesus received (really bad spankings that hurt Jesus very badly).

6. Cross. For this one, we talk about how Jesus was made to carry his cross up the hill but that he was hurt so badly and it was so heavy that another man had to help him. She's extremely interested in Simon.

7. Nails. This represents the nails used for Jesus' hands and feet.

8. King of the Jews sign. This represents the sign that Pilate hung on Jesus' cross.

9. Sponge and spear (kitchen sponge and toothpick). These represent the wine Jesus was given and the spear used to pierce His side. This is significant because they fulfill prophecies.

10. Spices. This represents the spices used on Jesus' body for His burial. 

11. Stone. This represents the stone used to seal Jesus' tomb.

12. Empty egg. This represents the empty tomb!

I know we're doing this for Claire, but it's quite good for me, too. It's a great, regular reminder of the elements involved in Jesus' death and resurrection, which is very appropriate for Lent. Does anyone else do these, and if so, do you use a different set up? I'm open to adapting this, if another/better setup is out there.

Lent with Claire: car conversations

One of the hopes and prayers I had for Claire during this Lenten season was that the things we're doing and talking about with her would "click" and sink in. Working through the Resurrection Eggs, memorizing Psalm 51, and doing a weekly craft or activity are all in place to help us talk with her about the gospel. I don't know if these things, particularly, are prompting her, but oh my goodness is she asking questions and thinking. 

We've been attending the Wednesday night Lenten services at church, and Claire has been requesting to go into "big church" with us. I know she's not understanding the full meaning of the devotions, but she's listening (while coloring and sticker-ing). She'll catch certain phrases that are said and ask about it. Last week, Allen was referring to the details of the fall and the curse, mentioning Adam and Eve. Claire asked (in a very loud whisper) if we were talking about Adam and Eve and the garden and the snake? She later heard him say the word "ash" and asked if we were talking about ashes/would we be getting more ashes on our heads. She's definitely listening.

On the ride home, she hit us with some direct, insightful questions. Questions like why can't I have the bread and juice when we go to the front of the church? Why did Jesus have to bleed? Did it hurt? Why did he die? Why do people die? When will we come back after we die? Why did they put Jesus in the cave with the rock in front? Could Jesus see in the dark while He was in the cave? Who moved the rock away from the cave?

Y'all. It takes us 8 minutes to get home from church.

Brad and I worked very hard to answer her as simply and yet as thoroughly as we could. It was a stretching experience to put such difficult concepts into language and imagery that a 4-year-old could understand. It was definitely a good thing for me to process my thoughts through that filter and to be stretched to think well. I'm sure we'll be talking about these things many times over the next few weeks as she continues to mulls things over.

She's making progress with her scripture passage, too, learning new vocabulary along the way (i.e. blot, iniquity, transgressions). We're learning each verse with hand motions so that we can help prompt her when she gets stuck. Maybe I'll try to video it soon. She's doing a great job...when she's not being silly. Bedtime brings out the silly in FULL FORCE.

The Resurrection Eggs are also going very well. She asks to talk about them at every meal (although we pretty much only do them at dinner), and she is remembering the meanings and connections so well. The problem is that she wants to play with the eggs in between meals. We've compromised by allowing her to (me) and being ok with (her) shaking them. Bless.

We're actually still working on last week's craft. It's not a difficult one, but it takes a little bit of time, and we've been interrupted quite a lot. Hopefully, it will get done this week, but if not, we'll just keep working on it. I am not forcing crafts; I do not have the energy for that, guys.

Are any of y'all doing any Lent-specific activities? Or, could any of you think of a better solution that Resurrection Egg-shaking? The thorns on our crown of thorns item have been falling off systematically...

Lent with Claire: Resurrection Eggs 2017, memory work, and first craft

We did a version of Resurrection Eggs with Claire last year and decided to do them again this year. I made some adjustments that I hope will make it even more effective for us this year. Like last year, rather than just doing the eggs for a couple weeks leading up to Easter, we're going to do them for the entirety of Lent, spending a few days on each egg so that the symbols and meanings will sink in for her. I'm hoping she doesn't get too bored with it. We'll see how it goes and adjust as we need to.

Our Resurrection Eggs. Claire calls them our "Hosanya" eggs. The first egg is a leaf, representing Palm Sunday. We sing a "Hosanna" song when we talk about it, and it's her favorite.

We've also chosen our passage to memorize with her: Psalm 51. It may be too ambitious, but we're going to give it a go. She has an amazing capacity for memory work, so we decided to aim high. First verse is already committed to memory!

Along with scripture memory, we're adding a new hymn to our bedtime routine: "When I Survey the Wondrous Cross." We've been singing it with her for about a week now, so she'll probably start joining in in the next week or so, if she keeps to her usual song-learning pattern. Our choices of scripture and song were pretty carefully considered, so we hope that they work together in a significant way in her little heart.

And...I'm going to try weekly Easter crafts again this year. Claire loves crafts, and I like to reinforce learning opportunities. So we'll give it a go. If you follow me on Pinterest, you've probably seen me pinning away at Easter crafts and activities. My theory is that if I pin a LOT of things, I can narrow it down to a few really good ones. Or maybe I'll just end up cluttering my "Easter" board. Who's to say? I'm not sure this week's was so much a craft as an "activity." We made some Easter-related items out of play-doh and talked about them as we went along. Please note: sculpting is not our thing. 

Her working face.

Our cross

Our cross and lamb. Lamb-ish type creation, rather. Doesn't matter- we talked about Jesus being the Lamb of God. That's the important thing to focus on, guys.

Next week's craft is actually more craft-like, and I'm hoping to add another couple of verses. We'll see how it goes!

Ash Wednesday 2017: Lent with Claire, year 2

Today was Ash Wednesday, which officially begins our observance of Lent. I've written about Lent for a few years now, so anyone who has been reading for a while is familiar with the Boswell participation. I added the tag for last year's Lenten posts at the end of this one, if you want to go back and read through some of them. 

We've been planning out activities and practices to do with Claire again this year as we work through this preparation period. My plan is to write about it again each week, so hopefully, you can follow along in this year's journey. We're trying to be really thoughtful and strategic with our activity choices so that it will be age-appropriate and meaningful. Our first Lenten activity was to make a (loooong) paper chain that lasts until Easter. She responds really well to visual markers of time, so I think it will aid our daily discussions.

She attended her first Ash Wednesday service tonight, including receiving ashes. We had some really good conversations with her about Easter and Lent and the reason that we receive ashes. Those are big topics for a little girl, but she is very thoughtful and asks good (and really hard!) questions. It's definitely challenging me to think hard about my answers and creative ways to express them to Claire.

I hope we have wonderful things to share about Claire's participation in Lent this year; she's so terribly interested in spiritual matters right now, so I'm hoping this increases her knowledge and understanding. Today, we began with this...

Genesis 3:18

By the sweat of your face, you shall eat bread,

til you return to the ground,

for out of it you were taken;

for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.

Nursery Trauma...I mean, Drama

I wrote this a little while back but thought it would still be a good update to post. Thanks to everyone who has checked on us through this process!

We left Boston when Claire was 18 months old, which was a fun age in many ways but proved to be difficult regarding life transitions. It's one of the regularly-scheduled age markers for separation anxiety, which, coupled with moving, caused us quite a bit of difficulty when visiting churches in Durham.

I've written about our struggle to find a church for over a year, but I didn't really touch on how big a factor Claire's nursery anxiety ended up being in that process. Very early in the visiting process, we discovered that Claire could not tolerate being left. Let me explain: we're not the hovering kind of parents who stick around too long trying to comfort her when she shows signs of anxiety at drop-off. We're pretty good about dropping her off and trusting the nursery workers that "they all calm down. It will be fine." It was basically never fine, though. Almost every church we visited ended up paging us/texting us/finding us to come get Claire. She would work herself up to the point of being sick and hysterical. She wasn't behaving badly or ugly or anything, but she was making herself sick and upsetting the other children with her panic. 

So, I would end up spending half, if not the majority, of the service holding Claire or walking around with her or just sitting outside the sanctuary while she tried to calm down. There were many churches where I didn't hear most of what the pastor taught (hard to form too much of an opinion about a church when you don't hear all of the teaching). Sometimes, we tried her out in the service. In general, she's a fairly quiet church child, but she's also really young, so she definitely wasn't super quiet. It became a stressful venture for me to make sure I had plenty of snacks and *quiet* diversions packed for her. Rather than spending the service walking the halls with her and not hearing the pastor, I would end up sitting in the service, supplying her with a steady stream of stickers/crayons/books/cars/snacks and not hearing the pastor. Either way, I usually left the service drained, tired, and frustrated while Brad tried to catch me up on what he took away from the service.

It was very disheartening, and we couldn't really figure out what to do. We figured out that the constant changing of churches was causing her more stress; seeing a different nursery with different faces every week added to her feelings of insecurity. Keeping her in the service with us kept her from learning how to navigate a nursery and to trust that we would come back from her. We just could not reach a happy medium.

When we decided to make Blacknall our church home, we knew we were going to have to put in some work to get her adjusted and let her know that this is how we do things and everything will be fine. What this looked like was a LOT of tears for several weeks. We got paged on many occasions and had to spend quite a lot of time slowly backing out of the rooms as very patient nursery volunteers worked hard to distract her. We really lucked out with the Blacknall nursery, though; their people are very committed to doing what it takes to allow parents to worship uninterrupted, and they are very creative in how to manage very upset children. A couple of times, the ladies manning the front desk at the nursery would bring a sobbing, upset Claire out front to calm down in a quieter area. They would hold her in their laps or let her roll a ball in the entry area, and this actually worked really well for her. 

Once my morning sickness calmed down enough for me to participate in the Thursday morning Women's Bible Study, I started brainstorming how to tackle putting her in childcare so that I could really benefit from my time. I came up with a plan: I would tell her before we got there that, if she would stay calm and wait for Mommy, she could have chocolate when we got in the car to go home. This is a big treat around here, as we still limit her sugar quite a lot. I also promised that she could watch Cars when we got home. We don't watch full-length movies outside of special occasions, so this was exciting incentive. To reinforce these prizes, we started reciting a catechism of sorts. It went a little something like this:
Q: What do you get if you stay calm at church?
A: Chocolate! I get to watch Lightening McQueen!

Q: Where will Mommy be?
A: Mommy will be upstairs with friends, and Claire will be downstairs with friends.

Q: What will Mommy do?
A: Mommy will come back for me...and then I get CHOCOLATE AND LIGHTENING MCQUEEN!

We went through this catechism countless times. 

When our first day of going to Bible study arrived, I was a big ball of nerves, worried about Claire and how she would react. I was working really hard to keep my anxiety at bay so that she wouldn't sense it and become anxious herself. At drop-off, she started sniffling and her chin started trembling, but we went through our catechism again, and she summoned her courage and walked over to play with some toys. 

I tried so hard not to watch my nursery pager like a hawk the whole time. I just knew that they were going to page me to come collect my inconsolable child. 

BUT THEY DIDN'T.

When I went to pick her up, she was not crying. She ran over to me, squealing, "Mommy! I get CHOCOLATE and LIGHTENING MCQUEEN!" Apparently, she was, in fact, able to hold it together and stay calm. It was a nursery miracle! 

She got everything I'd promised her, and shockingly, she decided that she liked church. :) We immediately started talking about how we would do the same thing next time...and we continued talking about it for the next week. The next week was kind of a bust, but it wasn't her fault; she actually ended up starting a stomach bug while in the nursery, causing us to leave early, and who wouldn't be upset by that? However, after that hiccup, she has gotten progressively more confident. She thinks playing in the nursery is fun now, and she trusts that we will always come back for her (she told the workers one time that her mommy "will be back in fifteen minutes!"). She still occasionally gets treats, but we've been cutting back on all the incentives, as that's not exactly sustainable long term. 

It continually gets better and better. We've progressed to the point of Claire asking- regularly- if we can go to church. In fact, a few weeks before Lily was born, I woke up after a night fighting a migraine and just did NOT feel like getting up and going to Thursday morning Bible study. However, Claire woke up and BEGGED me to please go to church. I could not say "no." I just couldn't. So, I loaded up on medication (still safe to drive, no worries) and Diet Coke (GAG. I hate diet, but I couldn't drink regular while diabetic.), and we headed off to Bible study. I'm so glad we went, even though I ended up leaving a little earlier than usual...which caused Claire to CRY because she didn't want to leave. She has become a completely different child.

And man. It has been a little bit life-changing, I have to say. Thankfully the prayers of family and friends + the promise of chocolate and Lightening McQueen eased our process of incorporating nursery into our life and has been a huge blessing for us as we continue to make Durham and Blacknall our home. For those of you who are nursery volunteers at your churches, I thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for your commitment and perseverance. It's unbelievable how much of a difference it can make. Let me know that you work in the nursery, and I'll give you chocolate.

He is Risen indeed!

This post is definitely belated; it was supposed to go up earlier this week, but I've had a rough week. I'll fill you in sometime.

Easter came! Lent is finished, and we were able to celebrate! I hope each of you had a wonderful day celebrating the work that Jesus accomplished.

I wrote last week about how Holy Week is a pretty busy week for liturgical churches, but then I only ended up being able to participate in part of the week's events. I missed the Maundy Thursday service because of a migraine, which was disappointing. The communion liturgy always begins with "On the night He was betrayed..." so it was a little sad to miss taking communion on the symbolic night that He was betrayed. Brad and Claire went, though, which was good particularly because Claire asked me ALL DAY if she could go to church (we didn't make it to Bible study that morning because I'd had to schedule a doctor's appointment during that time, and I guess Claire needed a church fix. There are way worse things than being hounded by my daughter because she wants to go to church.). 

I did make it to the Good Friday service, though. Guys. Good Friday services are so good and so hard. I thought that Blacknall did a marvelous job with the service. One of the elements of Tenebrae (which mean "darkness," by the way) services that I find to be really moving and significant for reminding me of the weight of the crucifixion is the gradual darkening of the sanctuary as the service progresses. There are several segments of scripture readings (usually called "lessons") that track the timeline of Jesus' betrayal through his crucifixion, punctuated by either choir-led or congregational songs that correlate to the readings. The different churches we've been at over the past few years have all had their own takes on how to go through the process, and they've all been very meaningful. Blacknall did it in, what I thought was, a beautiful way. 

The choir and a group of readers were in the balcony, leaving the front of the sanctuary bare of all distractions, excepting the altar table with 7 candles. Rather than having individuals take turns reading the scripture passages, the readers took more of a "radio theater" approach, with one person reading the "narrating" segments while others voiced particular characters involved in the story. It wasn't a drama, exactly, given that they were going through the actual passages, but it did add dimension to the presentation. In between readings, a little girl would extinguish the candles (one candle per reading) and the overhead lights were dimmed a little more each time. There was also a song between each reading, either performed by the choir or sung by the congregation. After each song was a period of silence, each silence stretching longer than the last. The combination of the darkening sanctuary and the silence did so much to emphasize the heaviness of Jesus journey to the cross. 

One of the most "real" and difficult parts of the service is the passage where Pilate asks the crowds who they would like him to release, and they/we the congregation respond with, "Give us Barabbas!" "Crucify Him!" and "Let His blood be on us and on our children!" It's unbelievably humbling and difficult to interact with that passage. It's hard not to tear up when you hear yourself chanting those things in unison with a roomful of people.

After the final reading (the death of Jesus), there is no official dismissal. Just darkness. All candles extinguished, all lights turned off. Everyone is invited to sit as long as they'd like or leave whenever ready. I imagine the weightiness and sorrow of the evening would last longer if some of us didn't need to make a stop by the nursery for a pick up on the way out the door. :)

For our two years in Boston, we participated in an Easter vigil (an ancient church practice) on Saturday evening, leading into Easter Sunday, and IT WAS OUR FAVORITE THING OF THE WHOLE YEAR. I wish I could take each of you to experience it. Although, the significance of the vigil is definitely heightened by going through the somberness of Lent together. Blacknall doesn't hold a vigil but rather keeps a Silent Saturday, much like Christ Community in Jackson. It was HARD to see posts about Church of the Cross's vigil posted on social media; it's an amazingly and deeply significant element to Easter worship that we miss with ALL OF OUR HEARTS.

But then Easter morning came! And we worshiped joyfully with our new church! Claire was pumped to wear her "beautiful dress!" that my Aunt got for her and join us for the singing parts of big church. She was a doll and thoroughly enjoyed it. New Baby must have been excited, too, because I contracted throughout the. whole. service. Oof. The weather was lousy and gross, but we enjoyed our day nonetheless, including having a couple of friends over to grill that evening (it quit raining long enough for Brad to use the grill, thank goodness).

I could NOT get her to cooperate for a picture. There is just too much to look at in the sanctuary, guys.

With her Easter happies. The balloon was actually given to her by her Sunday School teachers, bless them. Balloons are only her favorite things EVER.

We also finished our Resurrection Eggs! It has been so much fun to watch Claire learn about them and enjoy going through them every day. I'm definitely looking forward to going through them again with her over the next few years and seeing how much she gleans from the process. And, as promised, here's a rundown of what she would say with each egg:

Egg 1 (leaf for Triumphal Entry): It's a leaf means HOSANYA!
Egg 2 (cracker for Last Supper): It's bread. Jesus broke it and ate it and said, "This is my body."
Egg 3 (coins for Judas' payment): It's coins. Jesus had a friend who wasn't good and gave the money back.
Egg 4 (rope for Jesus' beatings): Jesus got a lot of spankings, and it hurt very much.
Egg 5 (cloth and thorns): The thorns hurt Jesus' head very much, and the cloth was for hurt his feelings (the best we could do at explaining mockery).
Egg 6 (paper cross): It's a cross they put on Jesus' back, and it hurt him very much.
Egg 7 (nails): It's nails they put in Jesus' hands and toes. It hurt him very much.
Egg 8 (King of the Jews sign): It's a sign that says "King" and hurt his feelings (again, mockery).
Egg 9 (toothpick and sponge for spear and wine sponge): It's a sponge for him to drink. They poked him in the side.
Egg 10 (small baggie of seasonings for burial spices): They put it on his body when he was dead to smell nice.
Egg 11 (rock for the tomb): They put a rock there. And it hurt very much. (No, Claire, it didn't hurt. It was to keep his body there.)
Egg 12 (empty): Where is it? (That's the point, Bear. Jesus rose again! He wasn't there!) 

Unfortunately, the empty egg isn't terribly exciting for her yet, but hopefully, it soon will be.

Thanks for following along on our Lent and Easter journey! We really enjoyed the process and are already looking forward to next year. He is risen! Indeed.

And, some Easter snapshots for you:

Easter basket made by our lovely friend, Mrs. Romine. Isn't it beautiful? The contents include: lamby and chocolate cross from Nana + "bunny bubbles," glitter glue pens, one of those multi-color clicky pens invented by NASA (but with girly, Easter colors), Anna and Elsa bubble bath, and pipe cleaners for her craft stash. She was thrilled with everything. And I got all of it (minus the Nana items) from the Target dollar spot.

Having an absolute blast chasing her "bunny bubbles."

Her first egg-dyeing experience. She was only "meh" about the process. But she did wear the bunny ears the whole time. :)

Aunt Donna and Uncle JD sent her an Easter package! It included sparkly stickers and Minnie stickers (she looooves stickers), as well as a book about the Littlest Bunny in Tennesse. :) She had a blast practicing her carefully-honed sticker-removing skills. Y'all, this kept her occupied for at least 20 minutes.

And the day after Easter, Baby Sister's Easter basket from Mrs. Romine showed up on our doorstep! Claire was thrilled and insisted on filling it up with items she felt Baby Sister could use.

And then I found this exhibition of Claire's haberdashery skills a few days later. Happy Easter!

Lent with Claire 2016: Holy Week

We're in the midst of Holy Week right now, which is a rather big week for churches observing Lent (*understatement alert*). Holy Week consists of Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday (the night Jesus instituted the Lord's Supper and was betrayed), and Good Friday, leading up to Easter Sunday. We'll be at church a lot this week. :) 

Palm Sunday was actually cold and rainy here, which was kind of a bummer. However, we had a wonderful time celebrating with our church, especially with Claire. We go to the early service (8:30) at church and then Sunday School, so we usually drop Claire off in nursery before we head into worship. For Palm Sunday, though, we took her in with us for the first part of the service, because liturgical churches do these really great processions into the sanctuary on Palm Sunday. Typically, everyone starts outside (we started in the foyer this time because of the cold and mist) with actual palm branches that everyone waves while singing and walking into the sanctuary. We did this for the very first time while living in Jackson, and man, it felt weird. And cool. But really strange. A friend of ours who had been at Christ Community for a while told us, "Yeah, it's the Sunday that we let our freak flag fly!" and I gotta say...it kind of felt like it that first year. 

However, much like everything else I've come to learn about in liturgical traditions, it's become a really special part of the process for me. My whole life, I've known about Jesus' Triumphal Entry, where the people shouted, "Hosanna!" and waved palm branches for Him. Well, now, my family does the palm branch-waving and hosanna-singing, too. With a sanctuary-ful of other folks, no matter what passers-by may be thinking. We really wanted Claire to participate, and she thoroughly enjoyed it. She knows about "hosanya" because of our Resurrection Eggs and our first Easter craft that we did. We've been talking about and singing and waving "Hosanna" for weeks! Basically, she's been training for Palm Sunday. 

Something Blacknall does on Palm Sunday that's really fun is that once you get into the sanctuary with the palm branches, you just drop them wherever you want in the aisles, which leaves it looking like what Jesus probably rode into town on. Brad and I dropped ours, but we let Claire hang onto hers until she left for nursery so that she could flail...I mean, wave...it around during the music. I had to apologize to the folks sitting behind us for the times she pegged them in the heads. Oops. They didn't mind, thankfully.

Little note: in Anglican churches (not yet sure about Presbyterian), the palm branches used for Palm Sunday are burned afterwards, and the ashes then used for the following Ash Wednesday. Isn't that interesting?

On the home front, we're still trucking along with our Resurrection Eggs, and I've really been loving it. I still don't know how much Claire is connecting with the information, but she is doing a fantastic job of remembering what each egg represents and talking about it with us. I'll try to do an update when we finish Lent and let you know what she says about each one as we go through them. I definitely want to record it for posterity because it is just so sweet.

We also finally got started on her Lent scripture memory passage. Spoiler: we won't finish before Easter Sunday. But that's ok. We'll finish it eventually! The goal was to finish up Psalm 23 (what we were working on before Lent) and then move onto her Lent scripture, but we didn't want to move on until she had a firm grip on Psalm 23. Thoroughness was the name of the game. We felt like we accomplished that, so I'm still chalking it up as a victory. However, there's a good chance we'll be working on her "Lent" scriptures into summer.

I have a few crafts/activities planned for this week to help continue building up to Easter. I think she'll really enjoy it, and I'm hoping we can have some good conversations while we work. And, I'm going to be brave and attempt dyeing eggs later in the week. Wish me luck! We'll have church services on Thursday and Friday. The Good Friday service is also called a Tenebrae service, and we're looking forward to seeing how Tenebrae is observed at Blacknall; we're familiar with how Anglican churches do it, and it is really something to be a part of. It's so somber and sad, designed to make you feel the weight of Jesus' sacrifice. It's eerily quiet. Dark. Stripped bare of any finery. You leave with such a sense of sorrow, which I find to be so beneficial in getting my heart and mind in a helpful place leading up to Easter. I find it so helpful to remember that there was SUCH sacrifice and sorrow before the great joy of Easter. I think it's easy to focus on the joy of the resurrection and not feel the intensity of the crucifixion. At least that's the case for me. Because those services are so quiet and contemplative, we'll be putting Claire in nursery, but I'm hoping we can have some good conversations about things at other times during the week.

I usually strongly disapprove of using phones in church, but I NEEDED to get a little shot of Claire with her branch. And also, Brad is giving me the side-eye. Whatever. I love this picture.

One of our "crafts" this week was making a simple lamb garland for our mantle (since she loved the Valentine's Day garland so much). In the Brassart house growing up, Easter always equaled lambs, not bunnies, so we're carrying that over quite a bit in the Boswell house. Jesus: the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

I had a few packs of die-cut sheep that my mom had sent me a while back that I punched holes in. I then showed Claire how to thread yarn through the holes, which she LOVED doing. 

Finished product! It's been up for less than 48 hours, and she's already asked to look at/touch/talk about "those lambs" a dozen times. Definitely a good "craft" choice! (Even if our living room looks kind of like a preschool Sunday school classroom...)

I'll be back with more updates about Holy Week and Easter over the next few days. And then, we'll buckle down around here and get ready for this baby! 

Lent with Claire 2016: Not on top of all the things this week.

Well, things didn't go as planned this week. I'm a planner/scheduler/rule-follower/creature-of-habit, so I tend to get pretty frustrated when my plans and schedules don't go according to my original plan. The thing I have to keep in mind is that they're just my plans and aren't really worth being frustrated over. My ideal plan for each week of Lent is to be orderly and consistent with our Resurrection Eggs, do a meaningful craft with Claire, and get to the Lent dinner and service at church. So far, that list has looked like this this week:

1. Resurrection Eggs: behind
2. Meaningful craft: didn't really work out
3. Church: didn't happen for me

Oof. I hate not being able to check things off my list...but that's a dumb reason to be frustrated or lose focus. Especially for an important "project" like striving to teach my daughter spiritual lessons and disciplines in the time leading up to Easter. The heart of the matter is so much more important than the completed tasks. And, when I step back and look at the bigger picture, I see that we didn't really get off track at all:

1. Resurrection Eggs: Brad has quite a few nighttime school things (which I rather hate), and I don't like to introduce new eggs without him. So, we've ended up a little further behind on introducing new eggs than I intended. HOWEVER, Claire is still quite enamored with the eggs and has a great capacity for remembering the meanings. Two of our most recent eggs were representing Jesus' beating and the crown of thorns. She has been so sad about Jesus being hurt and "having his feelings hurt" (ahem...being mocked). She asks questions about it and says, "That makes me feel sad." This being the case, I'm not too sad that we're behind- if she's getting it on some level and feeling the sadness that we should be feeling. Victory!

2. Meaningful craft: I attempted to do a watercolor craft where I taped a paper cross template to a piece of card stock with the goal of her painting over it (so that when I untaped the cross, there would be a white cross surrounded by pretty watercolors). Well, she only really wanted to paint on the cross template. It looks pretty janky, but she had a really fun time, and we talked about how crosses represent Jesus' love for us. Victory!

Craft. It's...uh...something, right?

You can't really tell, but she's waving around her Hosanya leaf craft and singing "Hosanna." 

3. Church: I have been dealing with Braxton Hicks this week (not the false labor kind- the super uncomfortable tightening stomach kind) that happens every time I move at all and lots of round ligament pain. I haven't been getting around very well, if we're being honest. Come church time last night, I was laying on the couch with four pillows and a heating pad. Claire and Brad headed off to church without me, which was a little disappointing. However. The good news is that Claire was EXCITED about going to church, which is such a huge improvement for us as a family! Brad was able to chat with some of the folks we've been meeting over the past few weeks, reminding me that we're starting to make some headway in making Blacknall our home. Plus, resting on the couch without being needed for any reason was helpful. Victories!

Although things did not go as planned, I'm pretty pleased with how things ended up. I'm encouraged by what Claire is learning (and by the way, we've started on her Lent scripture- finally) and am excited about what she will have learned by the time Easter arrives.

Lent with Claire 2016: Jesus was hurt...um...very badly

We've only added one new egg from our set of Resurrection Eggs since last week: egg 4, which is a small piece of twine, representing the whip(s) used to beat Jesus. Finding ways to explain to a newly-turned 3-year-old the concept of Jesus being flogged is sort of bizarre. Do we talk about it in terms of spankings? That doesn't seem that it would convey much to Claire, as she doesn't really get spankings. Occasionally a pop on the hand, but that's not going to give her a good idea of Jesus' whipping. Do we tell her Jesus got a lot of boo-boos? That doesn't seem very adequate either. We've talked about it by explaining that Jesus was hurt very badly and would have needed a lot of band-aid stickers (what she calls band-aids) because he was bleeding. So, our explanation feels a little faltering, as we try to give her an idea of what He experienced. Hopefully, we'll refine it over time, but until then, we'll keep trying to give her word pictures that she might understand. Anybody else have ideas?

Stretching the Resurrection Eggs out throughout the entirety of Lent is still working well for us, as we get to spend several days going over the meanings of each one. She still enjoys recounting the first few eggs every day:
1. The Palm Branch (ahem...leaf from yard). She likes to sing "Hosanna" and wave the palm branch she made. 
2. The Bread (oyster cracker). She explains that Jesus took the bread, broke it, and ate it.
3. The coins. She holds the coins and explains that Jesus had a friend "who wasn't very nice" (that's about as good as we've gotten with the Judas/30 pieces of silver egg).

She's still showing a lot of interest in the eggs that we haven't opened yet, and she asks every day if we can "talk about those eggs?" 

We're still enjoying the Wednesday night Lent services at church. Blacknall doesn't have regular Wednesday night services, and, compared to Sunday attendance, draws a fairly smallish crowd. We've really enjoyed sitting with different couples/individuals/families at dinner every time. This week, we sat by a young family who are in the final stages of completing their second international adoption. It was so interesting to hear their story of how they chose the agency they're working with, how they chose the country they're adopting from, and about their son that they are waiting on. They are literally waiting on one more signature before they can travel for a week of court dates in-country. It's exciting to start praying for them as they are waiting for and anticipating their son, much like we're all waiting for and anticipating Easter at the end of Lent. It's been so neat to see the folks that the Lord has brought into our Wednesday evening paths. 

After the meal each week, there is a short worship service, message, and communion. It's been very encouraging each week, and there's something really special about sharing a meal together before sharing the Lord's Supper together. Brad always says that there's just something about sharing a meal that draws people together (Baptists totally get this), so sharing a meal for sustenance followed by a meal of significance is a really great way to wrap up the day. And, thank goodness Claire has done a complete 180 on the staying-in-nursery-front. She's excited about going to church these days, and it's enabling us to participate in normal, church family activities. It is LIFE CHANGING, I tell you. 

We haven't done an Easter craft yet this week, and don't think for a second that Claire hasn't noticed. If I get my act together, I'll tell you about what we came up with.

Lent with Claire 2016: Hosanyah!

Since my last update on observing Lent with Claire, we've added a few more symbols to our Resurrection Eggs repertoire. She's been dying to open all of the eggs and asks about it daily, but so far, we're still sticking to the plan of having her wait as we open them one at a time and spend a few days going over each one. But, we have added the second egg (an oyster cracker representing the Lord's Supper) and the third egg (a few quarters representing the silver that Judas was paid to betray Jesus). I was really excited on the night that we introduced the second egg (after spending about 3 days on the first) when Claire held the cracker in her hand and immediately asked, "What does it mean?" It let me know that she understood that each of the things inside the eggs represent something. I don't know how much she understands of our explanations, but she's connecting on at least some level, which is very encouraging. In fact, last night, I asked her what she remembered about the bread, and she said, "Jesus broke it and ate it!" Very true (well, with a few other details).

Oh! The "palm branch" craft that we made last week has been waved enthusiastically as we talk about the eggs every day. She has totally been into that. Note to self: Claire really likes crafts. We did another craft this week, although it didn't tie in directly with any of our new eggs, unlike the palm branch of last week. I chose to do a really basic, paper plate lamb. We talked about how Jesus is the Lamb of God, and she thoroughly enjoyed gluing cotton balls and googly eyes onto the plate. I had told her earlier in the day that we would make a lamb after her nap...only to have the afternoon thrown into a tizzy, thanks to a tornado blowing through (??). But, that's a story for another day. All you need to know for the purposes of this post is that we made our lamby craft while sitting right next to a window (after the storms had blown over) so that we could see; we lost power during the storm, but Claire was determined that we were going to make her lamb.

Sorry about the lighting...power outage.

I might have made life more difficult for myself early on in this Resurrection Egg process: when we first talked about the "palm branch" (leaf from the yard) and how the people said, "Hosanna!" (Claire says "hosanyah") as Jesus rode into town, on a whim, I sang a song that we've sung in our past two churches on Palm Sunday. She loved it and asks for it during our times talking about the eggs, as well as at nap time. But then, she kind of expected a song for egg #2 (bread). I drew a total blank and couldn't think of anything. Brad stepped up on that one, though, and started singing a song that our Boston church used to sing after communion each week, which has a verse about the bread. I'm not sure how long we can keep up the song element (especially for things like the wine-soaked sponge?)...if anyone has any ideas, please chime in!

We've also been consistent in reading through the Lent reading plan for the Jesus Storybook Bible. Claire has been much more involved in the process than she has been in the past, which is simultaneously great and a little wearying. It's wearying in the sense that her "involvement" involves a lot of talking over us while we're reading, pointing out things that she sees in the pictures, interpreting what she thinks is going on, and repeating parts of the story that stuck out to her. The night we read the story of Joseph ("Jofuss") and his brothers, she was FIXATED on the illustration of Pharaoh dreaming about the cows. She kept talking about how he was "so scary of those cows, Mommy, he's so scary of them!" And, when reading about Moses and the Plagues, she could not stop touching and commenting on the pictures of the "ants" and "bees" (flies and locusts). Stopping to acknowledge her comments yields absolutely no results, so pressing forward really is the best plan. Brad is good at this. I am not. Bless us all.

We have plans to introduce her to a new-to-her passage of scripture to memorize especially for Lent, but we're still finishing out the 23rd Psalm, so we'll see how that plan goes. We're having some trouble with "surely, goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life." No idea why.

So far, I am so pleased with how our Lent plans are playing out. She really seems to be connecting with what we're doing, as well as enjoying it. I'm hoping that we're able to encourage her involvement and enthusiasm over the next few weeks!

At long last, we found a church.

Not having a church home for the first year (plus) of living in Durham was the BANE OF OUR EXISTENCE, if that's not overstating it (which it isn't). I haven't exactly made a secret of the fact that our transition to Durham was rocky and difficult. For our family, so much of that was directly related to not having a church home. It is definitely the cornerstone of our family life, and without a place to call home, we struggled. Deeply. It wasn't the sole reason that Durham was hard, but it was a major factor.

We had looked up a handful of churches before we moved to Durham and had a list of places that we'd planned to check into, which made the Planners in us feel confident and satisfied. We'd also, in our engaged-->married life, never really struggled with finding a church. Both in Jackson and Boston, we were very fortunate to just know very quickly. In fact, when we moved to Boston, we prayed specifically that the first church we visited would just be the one. Technically, because of my morning sickness at the time, Brad visited two or three without me, but the first one that we visited together was the only church I ever visited in Boston. Because it was the one. We found it approximately 6 weeks into living in Boston and stayed there for the rest of our time in Boston.

We were prepared for that not to be the case everywhere we moved as a family, but we had no idea the journey that lay before us in Durham. It was very humbling. The positives that we can now take away from the whole experience are:
1. There are a lot of great churches in Durham (and Raleigh, because we tried a couple there, too) who love Jesus, love people, and are seeking to do God's work. That's encouraging, for sure.
2. We learned to pray in a more intimate and desperate way for an answer to something so important to us. 
3. Our marriage was strengthened by the struggle. We had to have long, frustrating, deep conversations with one another, and we had to pray very specifically and earnestly together. 
4. We were able to narrow down, in pretty specific terms, the things that are very important to us when choosing a church to be a part of.

We can see those things looking back now. At the time, it was so hard to fight feelings of disconnectedness and loneliness and unbelonging. It was also hard to combat those feelings while still mourning the move from Boston and the wonderful church and friend group we had there. We tried a variety of different denominations, sizes, and styles of worship. We actually stayed at one church for about 5 months (Advent-Easter), hoping it was the one for us. While it is a good church, it was not the right fit for us. That was actually the situation with most of the churches we tried. 

A very discouraging element we found at way too many churches was a lack of general hospitality. That was very unexpected; in my head, moving south would bring more hospitality and outreach (you know, since we were leaving the Land of Yankees). Most churches have designated greeters that greet and guide newcomers, but, nice as these folks are, these interactions are rather impersonal and usually extremely brief. We found that very few actual church members in the majority of the churches we visited made any effort to greet us or engage us in any way. Y'all. If we weren't committed believers who were determined to find a church- if we were people who were seeking to find out more about the Christian faith- we would have given up, based on the level of engagement we encountered. I don't mean to sound bitter or harsh; I was just incredibly shocked. It made a deep impact on me- one that I hope I never forget. An impact that I hope influences my behavior at church every single time I'm there. Our church in Boston recognized this as a major need and actually gathered a group of folks (I guess you could almost call it a committee of sorts) who were tasked with insuring that this was never a problem. It was an excellent strategy for engaging new people and making their welcome a priority. We reflected on the value of that SO MANY TIMES while in the midst of our search.

We visited our church, Blacknall Memorial Presbyterian Church (Blacknall), for the first time last May. It struck me forcibly that, during our visit, we had multiple people/couples/families make an obvious effort to speak to us, introducing themselves and saying, "I don't think we've met before." It was such a disarming way to introduce themselves and draw us in. We've learned since being there more regularly that hospitality is a priority from the top down; the leadership models excellent outreach and expect it of their members. It definitely got our attention from Day 1. In fact, we were actually introduced to the pastor during that very first visit before the service began. During the service, when he served us communion, he remembered both of our names and addressed us personally when handing us the bread. 

We didn't visit Blacknall consistently between May and last fall (when we decided to call it home); we tried several other places during that time frame. It wasn't because we didn't like Blacknall or felt it was an overall bad fit. To be transparent: there are a few elements of how the church operates that were very different from my personal experiences and convictions (less so for Brad) and were difficult for me to accept. I had to pray about and work through many of them in the interim between our first visit and our decision to plant there. They're still things I pray and think about, but the Lord definitely engineered our experience to leave little doubt that Blacknall was the place for us.

And honestly? The thing that sealed the deal for us making Blacknall our home ended up being this pregnancy. I wasn't able to attend church on Sundays for months, which was very hard on my spirit. To simplify things (i.e. rather than continuing to try out churches without me), Brad would go to Blacknall, and Claire and I would stay home. At some point, a friend of his from Duke who also attends Blacknall mentioned that Brad should get my name on the prayer list specifically for pregnant women. How neat that they even have one of those! Brad (being the stellar husband that he is) found the person to email and asked them to add my name to their prayer list. Within a week, I had been contacted by two different women, explaining that there is a group of ladies at Blacknall who meet weekly and pray over the pregnant women and new mothers of the congregation. They also explained that the ladies in that group each take a month of the year and are "responsible" for the women who are set to deliver that month. The "April Lady" let me know that she would be contacting me closer to the baby's due date to start setting up a meal train and whatnot. Additionally, I was contacted by the children's director (a third contact in one week), who saw my name on the prayer list and also noticed that our address is close to hers. She offered to pick up groceries or stop by to run errands for me on her way to and from work.

I was floored, I have to say.

And then, if that wasn't compelling enough, Brad was contacted by another Blacknall-Duke friend of his who asked if we would like for the pastor and an elder to come to the house and pray for me (which they did).

We were so taken with how "hands and feet of Jesus" this church that WE WEREN'T EVEN MEMBERS OF was being to us. It was humbling and touching and was a reminder to us that we weren't detached from the Christian community, as we had felt for so long. It made our decision clear: how could we not be a part of a church whose values were those that we esteem so highly? Service? Care for the household of faith? Reaching out to those with a need of some kind? So we decided to commit. 

We haven't officially joined, in that we haven't participated in the membership classes yet, but we've decided to make it our home and are beginning to get involved. I've particularly been enjoying participating in the multi-generational Women's Bible Study that meets on Thursdays. It's been really nice to have regular interaction with other women who love Jesus and many of whom have children (including small ones, like mine). :) Brad has been involved in the Duke Divinity-Blacknall fellowships that have been started to encourage those studying theology at Duke together. We've also been participating in the Wednesday night Lent services and dinners, which have enabled us to meet more and more members. Last week, we sat with a couple who are mental health professionals and have a side ministry of missionary member-care (a ministry that I think is INVALUABLE in the missions community). We thoroughly enjoyed visiting with them and learning about their work. This week, Brad sat next to some Intervarsity friends from Duke, but I sat next to Mrs. June. Or rather, she sat down next to me, intentionally, to get to know me. She started out by pulling out a notebook to write down our names so that she could remind herself of us later. She's 72 and a retired psychiatrist who has been in the area since 1965. I had the best time visiting with her and was reminded again of why this church appeals to us so strongly. The intentionality has been so encouraging to us as newcomers and is motivating to us as we become more involved in the church community.

Our search was really long and frustrating and showed us some things about ourselves that were less-than-thrilling to discover. However, we feel really content with where we are and how we got here. We're looking forward to getting more and more involved during our time in Durham (which will be a while). Thank you to those of you who prayed along with us; it was such a journey, and we are so grateful for your part in the process!