“Dear friends, since God loved us, we also ought to love one another.  No one has seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and His love is made complete in us.”  1 John 4:11-12

As a stay at home, a homeschool mom, a “we’re home most of the time” mom–it gets so easy to shut the doors and forget about the big wide world out there.  We have to create a way to be purposeful about opening our doors and reaching out to others.

I think most of us feel that way.

As moms our plate is so very FULL.  But we can make a difference right where we are and in whatever season of life we are living.  I am just beginning to accept this in my own life.

God has been helping me “re-define” what makes an impact.

Sometimes I think serving has to be this BIG organized event.  Or maybe look like what I see someone else doing.

But you and I have a great opportunity to serve others with our kids right in our neighborhood and with the people we come in contact with on a daily basis. 

It looks different for all of us.

I encourage you to take a look at the needs that are present right around you.  In your own family, in your neighborhood, in your church, in your city, and see if there is any way you can help.  

Here are some simple ways we are loving on others this Easter…

1. Buy a pad of tulip sticky notes.  Encourage one another to write ways in which you are giving thanks.  Post on a window.  Fill the whole window up by Easter!  Encourage others who may come into your home to join you in being “thankful.”  Idea courtesy of Ann Voskamp–the “giving thanks” guru

2.  Invite someone over for a meal.  You know the ones!  That neighbor, that family from school, that single friend, that person you have wanted to invite over for a while– DO IT!  Then, let your kids help prepare for their visit.  Pray as a family beforehand that the Lord would help you to bless your guest(s) and love on them.  Pray that God would open doors for the gospel to be shared. 

3.  Make Easter baskets for foster kids!  This is so fun and something we are planning on joining in this year.  Check with your local Child Protective Services agency for particulars.  If you live in Dallas, click here to make some Easter baskets with your family.  It’s like filling a shoebox for Operation Christmas Child, but an Easter basket instead!

4.  Make Easter cards with kids and hand out to neighbors, friends, or while you are out and about.  Tell them that you are celebrating Easter and why.  Here’s a cute and fun idea!  Free Printable found here!

OR…Have you heard of the Jellybean prayer?  This is such a yummy way to share the gospel with friends who come over for a playdate or stop by this next month!  Keep a basket of prayers and bags of jellybeans ready by your front door.  My kids LOVE putting all these little baggies together–eat a jellybean here, eat one there….Here’s a cute printable I found–Jellybean Prayer.

5.  Memorize an Easter poem, an Easter song, or a passage of Scripture as a family.  Then share it with an elderly neighbor, new friends at a nursing home, or with grandparents at Easter dinner.  Our favorite Easter song is “Were you there?”  The kids get really into it, and everyone loves this song!  We also like to learn Matthew 28: 2-6 about the angel rolling the stone away.

6.  Have an Easter party!!  Invite over the neighborhood kids or a single mom, and have a meaningful Easter egg hunt, read an Easter story, and make these really easy cupcakes!

 

7.  Give your child’s teachers or Sunday school teachers some Easter lillies.  You could also give them the bulbs to plant at home.

“Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they toil not, neither do they spin; and yet….. Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.” Matthew 6:28-29   

Easter lillies have long been a symbol of purity and redemption as a result of Christ’s death and resurrection.

8.  Wash each other’s feet.  This has always been a special time for me.  After we read the story of the last supper, I have always washed my children’s feet.  I know my kids don’t quite get it yet about what a big deal it was for Jesus to wash his disciples feet or that I am willing to wash their feet.

 

I can’t describe it but this is always such a special time for me as their mother.  It is a reminder to me how much God loves me and came to serve unto death, and it is a renewal of my desire to love and serve my own family no matter the cost.  For now, they think it’s fun to have mom wash their stinky feet!

9. Have a lemonade stand to raise money for a cause your family chooses.  My kids are always begging me to do a lemonade stand, so we decided to do one with a purpose!

 I have found that actually inviting my children to help work to raise the money and then donate to a cause has helped them to understand more fully the concept of “giving.”  Two causes we have enjoyed supporting in the past are World Vision and Coins for Kids.  This year we are planning on donating to Living Water International.

10.  And finally…PRAY!!  This is something that I so often put at the bottom of the list, and yet it is the very fuel and incense of the heart of God.

Sadly, I often see this as a last resort instead of the greatest necessity.

Even if we can’t DO anything (physically with our time or talents) we can PRAY.  So my daughter made us these rainbow loom bracelets in Easter colors to wear so that it would help us to remember to pray.  Because it is so easy to forget.

We now pray for those missionaries, pray for the homeless, pray for the refugees, whatever request comes our way we encourage each other to pray! 

What a beautiful fragrance that would be, ALL of us serving God and others right as we are, WHERE we are!  

I’m praying for each of us to ask the Lord how we can love on others this Easter.  And…

I would LOVE to hear how He is leading you to do just that!  Share an idea below in the comments, or a way you are planning to love on others this season, and let’s encourage one another!