Fall pictures continued...

Since my previous post was getting so long, I decided to break up the pictures into themes.  Here are some pictures we took on Halloween day, where we visited the pumpkin patch, carved our pumpkin, went to our neighborhood fall festival, and then trick-or-treating.

**Fort those of you looking at the date I posted this blog....yes, I realize it's Christmas Eve and I'm just now blogging about the fall and Halloween and it's 3:45am.  No better time to blog than when everyone is sleeping!

Celebrating Halloween

What are your thoughts on Halloween?  As Christians, there is much controversy on whether or not we should celebrate this holiday because of it's pagan roots.  After studying 1 and 2 Kings last year and doing more research on idols and the origin of certain holidays, I began to question some of the traditions our family was participating in on certain holidays, namely Halloween, Christmas, and Easter.  As a child, we always treated Halloween as innocent fun, where we dressed up in fun costumes and got tons of candy.  We never got into the ugliness and darkness that often comes with this holiday.  But after studying scripture, I didn't want to make light of what it said and ultimately dishonor God by partaking in something that I thought was innocent and ignore the uneasy feeling I was having about celebrating it.  Being a person who is very black or white, I need scripture to say, "do not celebrate Halloween, only evil comes of it."  But as we know, scripture doesn't mention anything about Halloween.  So this is where I have prayed and prayed about what our family should do this year.

Finally, this past Saturday I felt like God gave me the answer that just made everything make sense.  It was the simple question, what would Jesus do?  Jesus would want us to "Let our light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your father in Heaven." Matthew 5:16.   Ironically, this was my scripture memory verse for the week.  Well, nothing is ironic with God!!  Would we find Jesus condemning the pagans/gentiles or would we find him out fellowshipping with other sinners?  As Christians, we are to take every opportunity to bring Christ into every aspect of our lives.  Too many Christians become locked in with an "in-reach ministry" vs "outreach ministries."  Jesus in one of his parables says "No one lights a lamp and hides it in a jar or puts it under a bed.  Instead, he puts it on a stand, so that those who come in can see the light."  Luke 8:16.  So this Halloween, our family has chosen not to keep our light hidden but to make use of this wonderful opportunity to bring glory to God amongst all the darkness in this world.  I want to close by saying we are not judging anyone who chooses or doesn't choose to celebrate this holiday.  We know that God is the ultimate judge, He knows the condition of each of our hearts, and this is just what our family feels God has led us to do.  Stay tuned for pictures of the kids in their adorable costumes and some fun crafts we've created this week.