Trick, Treat or Chuck E. Cheese...

We don't celebrate Halloween, and usually we stay home and hand out candy and gospel tracts, but this year, on top of our conviction that Halloween doesn't honor God, my heart was hurting in another way.

People in our neighborhood get very excited about Halloween.  They take days preparing their house for trick-or-treat night and do some serious decorating.  I will admit that the fact that he was staying up on his stilts (part of his costume) was pretty cool, but I could totally have done without the scary cemetery in the yard.  I have been having such a hard time with the idea of burying my baby and the view out my window was skeletons coming out of the ground and caskets with crosses that look fit to hold a real body.  My children, who are about to have to bury their sister, were given a vision of death and darkness that I pray will not be what they associate Rachel's death with.  After Des went to visit their yard as they were preparing for the night, she came back and said "that reminds me of Rachel".  

We put everything we are into teaching our children about the Light...about Jesus.  We tell them that death is not a bad thing when you believe in the Lord. I've been preparing my kids for months for the day we will have to say goodbye to their sister and put her in the ground, telling them they have nothing to fear.  And in one night of "celebration", any picture of hope I have set in their minds was taken over by the darkness that so many celebrate without considering it's implications.

I understand that not everything that night would have been scary.  I know we would have seen some cute lady bugs and probably a few fairies, but none of us are in a position to have our minds and our imaginations jeopardized by the in-betweens.  We decided this year that we needed to just separate ourselves from it.  Maybe next year we'll go back to handing out tracts, but I have to say that even that idea sounded like a compromise to me last night.  I guess I'm in a place where I am relying on God so deeply that anything that is unpleasing to Him breaks my heart.  To be honest, I hope I never leave this place...regardless of how unpopular it is.

So, if anyone is still reading at this point... we decided to get out of the house and go to Chuck E. Cheese instead.  I think this might be our new tradition!  The place was practically empty and there was no death and darkness to avoid... Sam is getting to an age where he really liked it - He did scare me a little with his version of skeet ball (he was throwing the balls - and he has a good arm!)  Isaiah was all over the place - going from one game to another...he had run out of tokens and the next time I saw him he had a cup full.  I ask him where he got them & he said "the girl gave them to me".  It pays to be cute. :o)  Desirae was really stepping up as big sister and kept calling the boys one at a time to go see different things.  She was also really excited to see a friend from church there and go play with her for a while.  So, this was Rachel's first time to see the big mouse, we figured we should have it recorded...

  

We get one of these drawings at each
kids' 1st visit to Chuck E Cheese.



Des kept saying all she cared about was "getting all that candy"... today at the benefit (I'll share all those details tomorrow) Isaiah asked a lady if he could have this huge jar of candy. (that's my boy!) She said no because they were having people guess the amount and whoever was closest would win it.  She told him "if I win it, I'll give it to you"  and guess who won the candy?!  That's right...a TON of candy is all ours! :o)  And Who do you think was in control of that??  God gives us the desires of our hearts when we are willing to obey for the desire of His.