During certain times of the year we take the opportunity to do something special for our family devotions. The weeks leading up to Easter are one such occasion. Several years ago I read about doing an Easter tree in Carol Brazo’s book No Ordinary Home.
Each night we read a different story from the Bible, tracing God’s love and grace toward His people from the creation of the world through the Resurrection of Christ. After we read the story, we hang an ornament which represents it on the tree. This is one way to help our children understand how the whole Bible fits together. We do something very similar during the Christmas season, as well. In fact, the Old Testament stories and ornaments are usually the same. The only difference is that during Christmas we use several ornaments and stories that focus on aspects of Christ’s birth. During Easter we focus more on the Passover week, with the betrayal and Jesus’ death and resurrection getting special attention. We have been doing this twice a year for the past several years.
Sometimes we read the passages from our Bible and other times from the Katherine Vos Children’s Story Bible. If you want to do an Easter tree of your own, start small. You could just do one week’s worth of ornaments this year, and build from year to year. We have almost 25 different ornaments by now, but we don’t always use the same ones, as some come out at Christmas, others at Easter. Mrs. Brazo has a list of 40 references in her book if you want to do even more with this….or better yet, be creative and come up with your own!
I ordered Mrs. Brazo’s book. I’m looking forward to receiving it. I’m also waiting for my copy of Mitten Strings for God. I love reading.