After yesterday’s delightfully warm weather we awoke this morning to a refrozen world, which made my early expeditions for cat-feeding and Wil-walking, very slithery!
Most of the walk was spent importuning the Lord for safety and He took good care of me! Then I was VERY pleased to be offered a ride to church with Pippa. Since she had three excited little ones to get ready we squeaked into church a bit late and there was a mad dash as I assembled all the “props” needed to lead Children’s’ Ministry. Mercifully Mike and John helped and the felt board was made ready just as the children were brought upstairs to join us.
I just LOVE re-telling the Christmas Story with small children. Everything is interesting to them. They are not blasé about the well-known passages from St.Luke and St. Matthew’s Gospels. The focus, today, was in preparation for Epiphany. I had spoken with Nick and we both agreed that, even though he would be preaching on the Holy Innocents passage, it really was not suitable for a group of young children and thus we would explore Epiphany.
Since one of the children is Seren (Star) born on Epiphany, the topic was pretty popular! After we jointly re-told the Christmas Story (right from the Annunciation through to the visit of the Magi) using the big felt board we moved into the craft room and they chose to make the snowflake stars (see yesterday’s link), With John and Mike to help, we were able to produce some quite credible stars leaving only time for closing prayer as church was already over by then!
The long walk home was pretty treacherous but I enjoyed singing various carols and smiling over some of the children’s comments from our time together.
And now Wil and I are tucked up on the sofa with carols playing on the newly revived CD player and a nice bowl of hot cocoa. Bliss!
The 12 days of Christmas are sort of like another world, which we visit every year. Time stands still, in a way. We gather cosily in our homes with snow and ice surrounding these warm oases; we listen to the angelic music, share food with dear friends and retell the Gospel story, freshly seen through the eyes of children.
Truly this is a Season overflowing with God’s gifts.
