Preparing for God’s Holy Days With a Joyful Heart!

The things we “found” were interesting, but the things we learned through deleavening together as a family were truly priceless!

When our children were young, our Feast of Unleavened Bread preparation began several weeks in advance by setting aside several Sundays to deleaven our home. Since the entire family was involved, we traditionally began the morning with one of the children’s favorite breakfasts (usually Dad’s pancakes and Mom’s eggs).

An imaginative review of the Israelites’ deliverance from Egypt and spiritual bondage followed, and Dad tied in the purpose of our cleaning to “remove the leavening” from our home and especially the “sin” from our lives.

Each week we continued to build on the meaning with animated, lively and fun discussions of God’s law, the keeping of His 10 Commandments, and how we must change to be more like Jesus Christ, our spiritual older Brother.

Fun and interesting finds

During the deleavening process, we often sang our favorite songs or listened to an “oldies but goodies” radio station. Dad particularly enjoyed singing to his “brown-eyed girls” as they giggled.

The children took turns cleaning closets, drawers and under furniture as we went from room to room. They were excited when we began cleaning their bedrooms, especially when they found a lost item underneath the bed or in a drawer. Our son was delighted when he found one of his missing Micro Machine toys hidden in an out-of-the-way spot.

The “catch of the day”? Something leavened tucked away in some obscure place—like a dried-up peanut butter and jelly sandwich in the eight-track player! Apparently, the girls had used the slot as their “microwave oven”—which explained why the Grease tape wouldn’t play anymore. …

Finding that PB&J sandwich inspired an amusing discussion about how difficult it is to see sin and rid it from our lives. Dad took the tape player apart, cleaned the tape heads and—hurrah!—the Grease tape played again!

Finally we cleaned the kitchen, removing the last chocolate chip cookies from the pantry. We then shared an evening meal of tacos or spaghetti with a special dessert.

Valuable lessons

Through this process, our children learned many valuable lessons:

• The deep meaning of removing leavening from our homes and sin from our lives.
• How very special they are to God as His called-out children.
• How to thank God always for His kindness and love.
• The importance of delighting in God’s way of life through the keeping of His Commandments.
• The importance of helping and sharing in each other’s tasks and doing so with a joyful heart.
• And that obedience is pleasing to our spiritual “Daddy.”

As parents, it has given us great joy to see God working in the lives of our children as they learned to embrace the very special meaning of these days.

For the first part of this series, see “Make the Spring Festivals a Family Affair.” Look for the third and final post, “Celebrate the Spring Festivals With Family Traditions,” later this week.

Diana Zollner is a mother and grandmother and attends the St. Louis, Missouri, congregation of the Church of God, a Worldwide Association.