Here’s are 3 simple ways to incorporate your faith into your pumpkin carving tradition with your kiddos.
With all three there’s no need to have a long lesson prepared you simply weave these faith conversations into the fun.
So when you’re carving pumpkins with your kids you can intentionally make a teachable moment from your activity. When you come to the carving part of the pumpkins you can ask your kids–What would happen if we didn’t carve the pumpkin and simply placed a candle in it?
You’ll get all sorts of great answers from your kids like–You wouldn’t see the light inside. So go with that and focus on God’s light in us and how it shines through us. His transforming love fills us with light. The importance of letting others see His truth shine through us in how we treat one another. You can end there and continue with your activities and play the song, “This Little Light of Mine.”
A Salvation Story for Pumpkin Carving
Above I shared a simple activity to weave your faith and values into your activity but this activity is for the purpose of sharing the Gospel.
There are other various gospel-centered activities online on how to share the salvation story while you carve your pumpkin. I’m going to tell you about the one we’ve used. When our kids were younger I enjoyed reading the “Pumpkin Patch Parable” by Liz C. Higgs with them. (affiliate link)
The book talks about how we all have “yucky slimy” stuff inside of us. Romans 3:23 says: “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” But the Farmer cleans out the yucky gooey parts out and makes us clean. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son that whoever believes in Him will not perish but have everlasting life.” John 3:16
After you’ve clean up all the goo from your pumpkin you place a light inside and you talk about how God’s light has been placed inside of us through Christ’s work on the cross. It shines in the darkness! 2 Corinthians 4:6 says: “For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.”
You can end by telling your child– If you ever want to know how to have God’s light shine in you let me know. Or you can simply tell them how to come to know Jesus as their Savior and ask them if they would like to do that.
I personally stayed away from the latter because I felt like kids especially when they are little want to please us and they’ll say, “Yes!” even though they may not necessarily know what they are talking about. By God’s grace, our kids initiated the conversation with us on how to know Jesus Christ as their Savior. We simply planted the seeds by sharing the Gospel in various forms throughout the year.
Our Messed Up Pumpkin Story
This third way is another conversation that you can weave into your pumpkin carving time. This pumpkin carving story had God’s grace written all over it.
We were carving a pumpkin with our kids when they were little. One of our boys made a mistake in his carving and it ended up with a “broken” eye. He was very upset because he “messed” up his pumpkin.
You can see he’s not happy in the picture above. As I was trying to help my son move on after his mistake I told him that I noticed his pumpkin gave off more light b/c its eye is broken.
I told him this happens in life all the time–mistakes. But here’s the thing when we make mistakes, feel broken or like we are constantly messing up–God shines even brighter when we let Him into that brokenness. I said, “You want to hide your pumpkin but I love it. You’re frustrated with yourself because you “messed up” but isn’t it wonderful that our brokenness are opportunities where we can let God’s shine through us even brighter!” Do you see it? Your pumpkin gives off so much more light through its broken eye.
How many of you can relate to my son’s feelings with his “messed up” pumpkin? You know that feeling of wanting to hide when we’ve messed up or feeling shame and frustration at our brokenness.
These are all reasons for us to lean into Him even more not our brokenness.
Our brokenness, our mistakes in the hands of God are opportunities for God to shine through us even brighter.
They are an invitation to let Him in and redeem the very things we’re trying to hide or feel frustrated about.
It’s an opportunity to come to terms with the fact that you’ll never be perfect but He is.
It’s an opportunity for us to see Him more clearly for who He is not who we feel He is.
It’s an opportunity to lean into Him for strength.
Let’s thank Him because in that very place of brokenness we have the opportunity to see Him shine even brighter in our life.
