A Simple Way To (try to) Observe Lent with Young Kids

Some women have come up with beautiful, symbolic ways of representing Lent in their homes.  Ann Voskamp, for example, has candlelit areas and decorated tree branches in her house.  Knowing my co-blogger Deb, she probably has amazing, artistic projects being created in her home  -- projects that involve things like fabric and sewing machines and mod-podge and other craft items that intimidate me.  (I hope she'll show us pictures if she does!)

But I am of the less-artistic variety, and my children are of the more-rambunctious variety, so our symbols have to be simple and only involve construction paper.

For the last few years, our family tradition has been to hang a Lenten paper chain -- similar to an Advent chain.  Since Easter is the High Holy Day of the Christian calendar, it seems appropriate to have a big count-down to it.  Every day we take down one link and read what we've written in it.

On most of the links we've written 2 things:  the name of someone to pray for, and one of the names for Jesus (from a list I found in Martha Zimmerman's book -- see the sidebar for a link).  On the Sunday strips we write a Psalm to read.

 Everyone seems to enjoy this tradition -- it helps to set apart this season as something special.  We add it in as a new routine each night at dinner.  So we continue to do it year after year.

And each year I persist in envisioning that this might be the year when we all sit around together, and read about what God says about repentance and then we bestow ashes on one another's foreheads, and then joyfully and peacefully make the paper chain.

This was, again, not that year.  There were many arguments and complaints  -- over things like who would get to put the ashes on whose head.  There was very little quiet listening; even when I tried to just read the smallest amount, there were numerous interruptions.

Then the chain-making process was a mess. The teenager decided he was too cool to sit with us and make it, so he spent the time in his room.  The youngest child was still staging a stand-off from earlier in the day, continuing to refuse to practice his violin --- so he also was in his room.  That left 2 children available to help, and they took turns either whining or doing it wrong.  (How hard can it be to cut strips of paper and tape them together??  Apparently too hard for this family.)

Even the stapler broke -- so one of the kid improvised by using a golf club as a scotch-tape-pieces-holder.

Nevertheless, we persevered in the exercise.  It is good for us, I think, to generate a list of 40 people to pray for... we end up including many that we otherwise forget the rest of the year.  This is, in part, what makes these seasons set-apart so wonderful:  being able to form new habits and continue them for a short while.

Young kids enjoy having tangible symbols, I think -- at least mine do.  Even though we had many meltdown and arguments today, it was still a day set apart.  Much of our conversation today was about sin and forgiveness and Jesus -- so that is a good day.

Now our chain is hung and we will begin our nightly link-take-down ritual.  Surely even this simple gesture will be fraught with arguments (over who gets to take it down, who gets to read it, why no one is listening, etc), but the chain is still here as a physical, present symbol.  It is a symbol to remind us that these days are different.  Our focus is different.... and we are eagerly looking forward to the Resurrection Day!