Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Halloween?

While I was a teenager, I began to grow very uncomfortable with Halloween. I have an extreme sensitive Spirit. I would watch horror movies with my friends (because I wanted to fit in. . .conformity) but they would often haunt me for weeks after that. Some of the Christian friends knew this and would tease me about it. There was no love from these friends or a sense of needing to protect a weaker sister. They took advantage of me. As I grew deeper in my faith, I would notice the grotesques parts of Halloween more than the cute costume that once lined my dress up box. Halloween suddenly wasn't so innocent anymore. It got me to thinking about why I would want to expose my children to things like this. If I begin now exposing them to Halloween as an innocent time simply to take candy from strange (um, doesn't even that sound a bit off?) how would I explain to them as they got older that we would no longer participate in it because it was really centered on evil ideas? Watch changed? Nothing really changed. They would have just been guarded from the evil before hand. I wanted my children to celebrate LIFE. That means celebrating Christ. It's hard to find Christ in a holiday that's very nature is to celebrate evil. Christian can't skirt around that idea. The very nature of Halloween itself it to promote evil in this world. Those people that would do anything to destroy the message of our risen Savior and glory the father of this world, know the realities of this holiday. Jesus is called the Light of the World. Why do we, then, celebrate the darkness?

That said, it would reason to ask, then what do you do? Is it wise to tell kids they can't do something but not replace it with other ideas? I don't believe so. So, we celebrate LIFE. In reality we celebrate life going to sleep. That is what fall is about. The harvest is coming in. The trees are changing color so they may sleep and rest for another season in the spring when it once again come alive to give us the beautiful colors of spring. As a gift from our Father, He gives us the beautiful, deep, rich colors of fall. I love these colors. I decorate my home in the rich colors of fall. Reds, yellows, oranges, and brown grace the halls of my home. It would stand to reason that fall is my favorite season. So we celebrate and give thanks for the time of year when we do glean a rich harvest (even is that rich harvest comes from the grocery store sometimes.)

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