I love Halloween!

...now that I know more about it!

Last year I read the book, Redeeming Halloween, with the MOPS book club. Typically, we just celebrate Hannie's birthday on the 30th - Happy 6th Birthday to Hannie - and that's our biggest celebration of October. Plus we love our trip(s) to the pumpkin patch! Now that the kids are older we take part in the school's activity, Funanza, or whatever Harvest party the churches have going on. While we enjoy those fun things, we also try to avoid all the icky things on TV and in the stores and all over the place!!!

There are icky things to avoid but there are also so many more things for us as Christians to be celebrating.

Did you know that it was set aside as a "Christian festival" to be celebrated along with others marked on the calender like Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost! Way back in 610 AD it was marked on the calender on May 13th but a hundered years later it was moved to November 1st to counteract a pagan festival that was held then. (Christmas found it's place on the calender for the same type of reason!)

Origionally, there were several days marked out for individual Christian martyers and then the church combined it to one day of rememberance and called it "All Saints Day". To quote the book, "As those who believe in salvation through Christ alone, we owe a debt of honor to the faithfulness of those who stood firm in the face of death and established the church." Who knows where we'd be without the early Christians who stood firm for Christ in the face of death!

Halloween is "a meaningful time for the church to remember the early martyers."

October 31st, the party before the party, is also a time to, "Remember your leaders, who spoke the word of God to you. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith." (Hebrews 13)

So today at supper time our family talked about Stephen, the first martyer mentioned in Acts 7. Then we talked about Daniel in the lion's Den and how he stood firm for the Lord. After talking about a martyer and a plain ol' Bible hero, we talked about people we know right now who live out their faith... Pastor Chris, Evan (Benjamin's school friend), missionaries we know...

Halloween is a good time to remember and honor the Christians years ago who stood firm in their faith and to encourage fellow believers and to pray for missionaries around the world!

What a great holiday!


--Another great book that's for kids is The Pumpkin Patch Parable by Liz Curtis Higgs... how just like a pumpkin, we grow, are picked, cleaned, and then shine with the light of Christ.

--Also... a site for today's martyrs: http://www.persecution.com/