March 28: Contentment and Palm Sunday Easter Egg Hunts

CONTENTMENT SCRIPTURES

Eph. 1:11 also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will, 

Eph. 5:18-20 And do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit,  speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord;  always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father; 

A grumble-free contented woman 
dwells on the gracious providence of God.

She knows:

• The God Who withholds no good thing from her "from those who walk  uprightly." (Ps. 84:11)
• The God Who supplies every need of hers according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus. (Phil. 4:19)

[Excerpted from Contentment: A Matter of the Heart

by Karen Horsey / Karen's Kreations]

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HUNTING EASTER EGGS:

To  hunt? or not to hunt?  Many Christians ponder over this question since they want to focus primarily on Jesus' death, burial and resurrection during Easter weekend.  Many grandparents just don't understand if you forego this family tradition.  Each family must of course, decide for themselves, but here is my take on this issue...

When my sons were young, about age three, the grandparents wanted to continue this tradition.  After all, we had Easter baskets and egg hunts when we were their age.  After much discussion my husband and I decided to go ahead and have the egg hunts, but we always did them on or before Good Friday.   I think we even called it a Spring Egg Hunt rather than an Easter egg hunt.  Typically, Palm Sunday was the chosen day for our egg hunts.  The kids enjoyed finding the eggs so much that many times we would hide them several different times during that week, both inside the house AND outside the house (no treats after the first one though), for them to seek out and find.  I guess it's the hunter/gatherer instinct in boys/men that loved this activity so much.

We never found it an obstacle to teaching about the true meaning of Easter which we did on a regular basis.  In my previous blogs on March 24 and March 25  I described how we made homemade Resurrection Eggs filled with items that represented the various parts of Passion Week.  We would open one each day from about Palm Sunday up through Easter morning.  We did not do Easter "baskets" per se, but did buy Easter candy as a treat.  There was no confusion especially since it was all done before Easter/ Resurrection Day.

We did not, however, emphasize the Easter Bunny but told our kids (like we told them about Santa Claus) that it is a part of Easter that many children believe in and for them to NOT tell them any differently.  That was for their parents to do.  We firmly believed in explaining and telling them the truth about these traditions in our culture and also let them know how they originated, i.e. St. Nicholas, bunnies being fertile, etc.

There is no need to be stressed out about this issue. Just pray and ask the Lord what is better for YOUR family, despite the well-intentioned advice of other family members and friends.  

James 1:5  

But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, 

who gives to all generously and without reproach, 
and it will be given to him.