One thing that I learned during Holy Week in quarantine was that you are a necessary component to your family’s growth towards God. Without having a church to go to, bible study to attend, or festivities to celebrate together, it wasn’t very easy to feel like it was a special season.
Through this show, my intention is to give you resources to help you bring church to your home and let the beauty of Easter come alive where you are! Celebrate today and everyday as if it is Easter Sunday, because it is. Our Lord is alive, He is Risen. We are living life as a groundhog day of Easter Sunday 🙂
Welcome to the Soul Family LIVE Show & Podcast! I’m your host Sinikka & and if you haven’t heard our FREE 3-Day Forever I Choose You Devo is here! I created this 3-day digital devotional as a significant tool to walk you and your beloved through what these words mean to me, and serve as a tool to remind you and your beloved to continue to say, “Forever, I choose you.” Find it in the shop!
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Episode 21: Top Resources To Help Your Faith Grow At Home
Welcome to the Soul Family Show & Podcast! I’m your host Sinikka & and this week we’re talking about exactly how the Soul Family is going to be walking through this Easter season of COVID-19 continuing to intentionally choose one another!
One thing that I learned during Holy Week in quarantine was that you are a necessary component to your family’s growth towards God. Without having a church to go to, bible study to attend, or festivities to celebrate together, it wasn’t very easy to feel like it was a special season.
Through this show, my intention is to give you resources to help you bring church to your home and let the beauty of Easter come alive where you are! P.S. In the Catholic Church, we celebrate Easter for seven days following the resurrection and treat each day as if it were Easter itself. My hope for you is to enjoy Easter this entire week and everyday afterwards, celebrating the resurrection each day with just as much enthusiasm as the day of our Lord’s resurrection!
My little family has now been quarantined for 32 Days. Holy Week amidst a quarantine brought a deeper joy, peace, desire for Christ, and gratitude than I could’ve expected, as it brought the most participatory and engaging faith-filled activities we’ve done.
We made sugar cookies iced with reminders for each day, and handprint reminders of them too. I LOVE coloring calligraphy and enjoyed my own sort of reminders, along with daily reflections, rosaries, chaplets, songs, chants, and live streaming mass on Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter Saturday at the Vigil.
I had never brought so much faith, so fervently, into the smallness of our one room apartment. I told my son and reminded my husband of the Holy week stories, read scriptures, said prayers, and even colored pictures and taped them up around our living room to remember Christ’s walk to the cross by creating a kid-friendly Stations of the Cross. I decorated sugar cookies with icons from each day of the week and decorated a lamb cake resembling a lamb slain and resurrected. I made every bit of our faith and Jesus’ story the week of his crucifixion and resurrection evident on the walls and in the bellies of our family. And it was good. It was so so good.
I’ll always remember this year as the one where I realized how important and critical it is to share our love for Christ, His life’s work, and stories from His Word at HOME. Just in this last week’s time, it’s made a difference in my heart and made it obvious to my son and reminded my husband that this week was meant to be special, whether we were in a church or not, and we have a part in making that truth a reality by keeping it alive in our hearts and in our homes.
This past week was made possible not just by my doing, but by researching. It was taking a few Pinterest ideas and resources from kid-friendly Christian activity websites that gave me the personal education needed to share this week’s stories in practical, tangible ways.
So this Easter week, I want to help you do the same by sharing the resources I’ve found significantly helpful for my own faith and for my family’s!
Top Resources To Help Your Faith Grow At Home
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Music: Children’s / Adult’s Christian Easter song playlist on REPEAT.
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Daily Prayer: Use a structured prayer or pray spontaneously for the world each day this week. Now that we have a high priest who sits at the right hand of the Father, He hears our prayers – and friends, we need to pray for the world – which is hurting from this sickness. I’ve been using the Divine Mercy Chaplet – but use any good prayer like the Our Father is GREAT or an Easter prayer you find online – and speak it on behalf of the needs of the world!
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Daily Reflection: I use Jesus Always!, my son uses Jesus Calling for Children, to help us fully embrace the beauty of what life looks like with Jesus resurrected! Read a section of the Easter scripture passages (after Jesus rose from the dead). Read Easter Reflections on the Bible App!
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Food: Get a lamb cake, decorate sugar cookies, try making resurrection cookies, or just feast! Feasting for me will look like less sugar, gluten, and dairy, because after 30 days in quarantine, my body has let me know it’s had enough and cannot continue to consume the things that it’s not used to – but however you feast, FEAST, because this is the most important celebration week of the year!
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Art: Having pictures, paintings, sculptures, statues, or drawings up around your house remind you of the truth that Jesus is alive – so get colorful and creative. Bring out your Bible and put it on the table – opening it up to the Easter story. Print out calligraphy like “Alleluia” or “Hosanna” and hang it up. Write out “He Is Risen!” and put it on your fridge. Print a photo you find online of Jesus, reminding you that He was a person, and you’ll find yourself looking at it, remembering and celebrating. The goal is to remind yourself and your family of the truth by putting it up around the house!
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Outdoors: Step outside and feel the air on your skin. Breathe in and know that the world has been revived by our Lord. Just be still and know that He is God, live in that moment – fully present in His creation 🙂
Celebrate today and everyday as if it is Easter Sunday, because it is. Our Lord is alive, He is Risen.
We are living life as a groundhog day of Easter Sunday 🙂
Reflection Questions:
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What can you cook, bake, or create this week to celebrate Easter?
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What will you pray daily?
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What do you plan to reflect on each day this week?
Your Challenge:
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Find your song list, start those tunes going, and share with your spouse what you will be doing to celebrate Easter this week. Invite Him to choose something to cook, bake, or create too – and get to celebrating! IT’S EASTER!
If you want a written reflection on this topic from behind the scenes, sign up to join The Soul Family Insider’s List, whose link is in the notes! http://eepurl.com/c7rxJb
Friend, you’ve got this, and even more – God’s got this. Get out there and hug the one person you chose to be with forever. Praying you have a peace-filled day!
