Repost: An Advent Reflection

So many times over the past few weeks I have tried to sit down and write, and just found that the words won't come.  The thoughts are there swirling around in my head, but the words just won't come.  So...I think it's time to step back from this space for a spell and let those thoughts percolate a bit more.   For today, I leave you with an Advent reflection I originally posted December 22, 2014, and I will probably pop in some time around New Years to share my Best Books of 2016, but otherwise...I will be back when the words are ready,  my friends. 

A Very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all!
____________________

An Advent Reflection

 

This year's Advent season has been kind of different – unique – mostly in a good way.

 

Part of it is borne out of the fact that I decided to wait for most of the 'celebratory' aspects of Christmas – the decorating, the baking, the gift wrapping, the music, the guests -  until…well…Christmas. We are all off of work and school that week between Christmas and New Years and will actually have time to savor and enjoy those activities.   I find that now I'm actually looking forward it rather than dreading one (or two, or three, or four) more thing to cram in around my husband's busy work schedule, the kids' swimming lessons, and moving house (which is how we spent the first three weeks of December).

 

Part of it has been seeing the kids embrace our Advent devotional traditions as their own.  They asked for weeks ahead of time if we were going to listen to the Messiah again this year.  They are active participators in our nightly Jesse Tree readings.  They listen.  They ask questions.  All those years of trying to establish these traditions when they were all little and it seemed to be a waste of time because they were too wiggly and squirmy to get anything out of it?  That's totally paying off now that they are a little bit older.

 

Part of it has been that I have been taking the time to do my own personal reflections on Advent, using the devotional guide portion of Bobby Gross' book Living the Christian Year, meditations that have seamlessly tied together with my regular through-the-New-Testament readings, my personal literary reading, and what we've been reading with the children.  Those twin themes of Advent - waiting and patience -have been particularly meaningful to me this year.  This has been true both on a personal level in my daily battle against discouragement and on a grander level when one starts to think about all the hard, hard things going on all over the world – those things that sometimes make you start to wonder at times if God is still there.

 

Consider this from Isaiah 35:3-4, 10:

 

"Encourage the exhausted and strengthen the feeble.  Say to those with anxious heart, 'Take courage, fear not.  Behold your God will come with vengeance; the recompense of God will come, But He will save you…The ransomed of the Lord will return and come with joyful shouting to Zion with everlasting joy upon their heads.  They will find gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing with flee away." (NASB)

 

On the same day that I read that in the Advent devotional, my regularly-scheduled Bible reading was from 2 Peter 2.  The very same theme was echoed – waiting and hoping for the Savior who will mete out vengeance on the unrighteous and salvation to those who belong to Him.  The day is coming when all will be made right.   We've started reading the Narnia books out loud to the children, and even that story has tied right in to my reflections:

 

"Wrong will be right when Aslan comes in sight,

At the sound of his roar, sorrows will be no more,

When he bares his teeth, winter meets its death,

And when he shakes his mane, we shall have spring again."

(CS Lewis, The Lion, the Witch, and The Wardrobe)

 

The following day, I came to the story of the birth of John the Baptist in my Advent reflections.  The thought occurred to me about how very amazing these events must have been to Zechariah and Elizabeth and those around them after 400 years of "silence" - to see God stirring and working again…to see prophecies being fulfilled, to know that they were not forgotten.  This birth of John the Baptist was like that first thaw of spring after endless winter in Narnia....Aslan was on the move!  The promised Messiah was coming to rescue and to redeem and to save: "Because of the tender mercy of our God, with which the Sunrise from on high will visit us, To shine upon those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace." (Luke 1:78-79, NASB).

 

I saw the Advent theme again as I read the final few books of Homer's Odyssey this past weekend.  Penelope, Odysseus' wife, has been waiting for 20 long years for Odysseus to return home from the Trojan War - never knowing if he was dead or alive.  Talk about waiting - longing - hoping - hardly daring to believe that it might be true - and then the joy when she finally recognizes that it is him, alive and well and home again:

 

"Joy, warm as the joy that shipwrecked sailors feel when they catch sight of land - Poseidon has struck their well-rigged ship on the open sea with gale winds and crushing walls of  waves, and only a few escape swimming, struggling out of the frothing surf to reach the shore, their bodies crusted with salt but buoyed up with joy as they plant their feet on solid ground again, spared a deadly fate..."

(Homer, trans. Fagles, The Odyssey , Book 23 Lines 262-269

 

 

Waiting and patience…and the joy that comes when that long waiting is over and the thing sought for has come at last. He HAS come to save us, and WILL come again to take us home.  We can have hope in the waiting because we know that the joy will come.  It is sure and it is certain.

 

E'en so Lord Jesus, quickly come!

From My Commonplace: On Ash Wednesday (a little late)

So…I know I'm a week late for Ash Wednesday.  But last week…well last week blogging just wasn't gonna happen.  However, since Lent is a season, I think these thoughts are still applicable…I know I'm still chewing on them!...so I'm still going to share them, even a week late.   

 

A little bit of context, for those who may never have attended an Ash Wednesday service (I hadn't until this year!): part of that service involves the pastor or priest marking a cross made of ashes on the forehead with these words "Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return."  This is a good article on what Ash Wednesday is all about.   

 

A reflection on receiving the ashes:

 

"For the truth is that, considering the larger scheme of things, we live only a very short time.  And the reminder of that reality can serve to put our present situation into clear perspective.  It is not uncommon to read in the human interest section of the newspaper a story about a woman or man whose diagnosis of a terminal or life-threatening illness has brought about a radical change of heart. Suddenly, he or she examines priorities, sees superficial concerns for what they are, casts them aside, and determines to live each day with gratitude and fearlessness.  Ash Wednesday is such a diagnostic moment for all of us." (p.19)

 

~Wendy Wright, The Rising: Living the Mysteries of Lent, Easter, and Pentecost

 

 

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My Bookbag This Week:

Devotional: The Daily Office Lectionary Readings and Prayers from The Trinity Mission

 The Cloud of Witness (Gell)

 A Sacrifice of Praise (poetry anthology, edited by Trott)

 The Rising: Living the Mysteries of Lent, Easter, and Pentecost (Wright)

Theological: The Screwtape Letters (Lewis)

AO Book Discussion Group: Paradise Lost (Milton)

Personal Choice: The Scent of Water (Goudge)

With my Hubby: Pride and Prejudice (Austen)

Family Read-Aloud Literature: The Wouldbegoods (Nesbit)

 

*I am also reading Scouting the Divine (Feinburg) with a women's group at church and Charlotte Mason's Volume 6 for a local CM book club, but these meetings are infrequent and so I just read the brief section assigned as our meetings come up.  They aren't really part of my regular reading rotation as the rest of these are.

 

** Yes.  My hubby is actually reading Pride and Prejudice with me.  And enjoying it....

 

---

 

 

 

 

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An Advent Reflection

This year's Advent season has been kind of different – unique – mostly in a good way.

 

Part of it is borne out of the fact that I decided to wait for most of the 'celebratory' aspects of Christmas – the decorating, the baking, the gift wrapping, the music, the guests -  until…well…Christmas. We are all off of work and school that week between Christmas and New Years and will actually have time to savor and enjoy those activities.   I find that now I'm actually looking forward it rather than dreading one (or two, or three, or four) more thing to cram in around my husband's busy work schedule, the kids' swimming lessons, and moving house (which is how we spent the first three weeks of December).

 

Part of it has been seeing the kids embrace our Advent devotional traditions as their own.  They asked for weeks ahead of time if we were going to listen to the Messiah again this year.  They are active participators in our nightly Jesse Tree readings.  They listen.  They ask questions.  All those years of trying to establish these traditions when they were all little and it seemed to be a waste of time because they were too wiggly and squirmy to get anything out of it?  That's totally paying off now that they are a little bit older.

 

Part of it has been that I have been taking the time to do my own personal reflections on Advent, using the devotional guide portion of Bobby Gross' book Living the Christian Year, meditations that have seamlessly tied together with my regular through-the-New-Testament readings, my personal literary reading, and what we've been reading with the children.  Those twin themes of Advent - waiting and patience -have been particularly meaningful to me this year.  This has been true both on a personal level in my daily battle against discouragement and on a grander level when one starts to think about all the hard, hard things going on all over the world – those things that sometimes make you start to wonder at times if God is still there.

 

Consider this from Isaiah 35:3-4, 10:

 

"Encourage the exhausted and strengthen the feeble.  Say to those with anxious heart, 'Take courage, fear not.  Behold your God will come with vengeance; the recompense of God will come, But He will save you…The ransomed of the Lord will return and come with joyful shouting to Zion with everlasting joy upon their heads.  They will find gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing with flee away." (NASB)

 

On the same day that I read that in the Advent devotional, my regularly-scheduled Bible reading was from 2 Peter 2.  The very same theme was echoed – waiting and hoping for the Savior who will mete out vengeance on the unrighteous and salvation to those who belong to Him.  The day is coming when all will be made right.   We've started reading the Narnia books out loud to the children, and even that story has tied right in to my reflections:

 

"Wrong will be right when Aslan comes in sight,

At the sound of his roar, sorrows will be no more,

When he bares his teeth, winter meets its death,

And when he shakes his mane, we shall have spring again."

(CS Lewis, The Lion, the Witch, and The Wardrobe)

 

The following day, I came to the story of the birth of John the Baptist in my Advent reflections.  The thought occurred to me about how very amazing these events must have been to Zechariah and Elizabeth and those around them after 400 years of "silence" - to see God stirring and working again…to see prophecies being fulfilled, to know that they were not forgotten.  This birth of John the Baptist was like that first thaw of spring after endless winter in Narnia....Aslan was on the move!  The promised Messiah was coming to rescue and to redeem and to save: "Because of the tender mercy of our God, with which the Sunrise from on high will visit us, To shine upon those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace." (Luke 1:78-79, NASB).

 

I saw the Advent theme again as I read the final few books of Homer's Odyssey this past weekend.  Penelope, Odysseus' wife, has been waiting for 20 long years for Odysseus to return home from the Trojan War - never knowing if he was dead or alive.  Talk about waiting - longing - hoping - hardly daring to believe that it might be true - and then the joy when she finally recognizes that it is him, alive and well and home again:

 

"Joy, warm as the joy that shipwrecked sailors feel when they catch sight of land - Poseidon has struck their well-rigged ship on the open sea with gale winds and crushing walls of  waves, and only a few escape swimming, struggling out of the frothing surf to reach the shore, their bodies crusted with salt but buoyed up with joy as they plant their feet on solid ground again, spared a deadly fate..."

(Homer, trans. Fagles, The Odyssey , Book 23 Lines 262-269

 

 

Waiting and patience…and the joy that comes when that long waiting is over and the thing sought for has come at last. He HAS come to save us, and WILL come again to take us home.  We can have hope in the waiting because we know that the joy will come.  It is sure and it is certain.

 

E'en so Lord Jesus, quickly come!

How We...Celebrate the Season of Easter

In the comments to this post, I said I would write a post to share some of our traditions for the seasons of Lent and Easter.  That post turned out to be rather long.  You can find Part One – things we do in the weeks leading up to Easter – here.  This is part 2 – what we do for Easter Sunday and beyond.

 

On Easter Sunday morning, we re-light all the candles and read the final Lenten Lights devotional about how Jesus has risen from the dead.  We don’t do Easter baskets or candy or egg hunts, but we do present the children with one of RC Sproul’s allegorical picture books.  Have you seen these?  We really like them.  They explain complex theological concepts, like the atonement, in the form of a story.  We already have The Lightlings and The Prince’s Poison Cup and this year gave them The Donkey who Carried a King.   

 

 

Our food traditions are still a bit of a work in progress.  This year I made Hot Cross Buns for breakfast (although I had some icing issues which is why you can’t see the crosses in this picture!)  We usually eat some of our Easter Eggs too.   For dinner, I make a big meal-salad with chicken and hard-boiled eggs and we have some kind of fruit pie or crumble for dessert.

 

 

This year, for the first time, we’re extending the special Sunday devotionals through the season of Easter until Pentecost.  We will keep a similar format to the Lenten Lights devotional series by lighting the candles each week, reading a Scripture passage related to the theme for the week, and placing a corresponding art print on the easel.  I took the Scripture readings and themes from Bobby Gross’ book Living the Christian Year. 

 

First Sunday after Easter

Doubting Thomas - John 20:19-31

 

Second Sunday after Easter

Emmaus Road - Luke 24:13-23

 

Third Sunday after Easter

The Good Shepherd - John 10:1-30

 

Fourth Sunday after Easter

I Am the Vine - John 15:1-17

 

Fifth Sunday after Easter

Ascension - Luke 24:36-49

Ascension Day itself falls 40 days after Easter, this year it is Thursday, May 29.  That night we will read Acts 1:1-11.

 

Sixth Sunday after Easter

Ascension - Revelation 22

 

Seventh Sunday after Easter (Pentecost)

Pentecost - Acts 2:1-42

 

And there you have it.  Our traditions are always a work in progress, and I always have ideas that I would like to do and yet they haven’t happened yet for one reason or another.  Some of those things include:

 

- Extending our devotional readings to daily, rather than just weekly.  I just haven’t found anything prepared that I like yet and time always slips away from me to organize something myself.

- I’d really love to select some hymns and songs to be sung particularly during this time of year, just as we have Christmas carols in December.  (Anyone have a favorite?)

- My husband would really like to do a Messianic Passover Seder during Holy Week as well.  We did this once with friends a number of years ago and it was a really neat experience.

- I’ve always loved the idea of building an Easter garden like this too, but is one of those things that slips away from me year after year.

 

What traditions does your family have for this Season?

 

How We...Prepare for Easter

In the comments to this post, I promised I would share a few of our family’s traditions for the seasons of Lent and Easter.  I realize that it’s a bit too late for this year, but hey, it gives you plenty of time to think and consider how you may want to approach this in your home for next year. J

 

A couple of caveats: Our goal during Lent is mostly to help our children (and ourselves) understand that this is a special season set aside to reflect on Christ’s coming and work on the cross on our behalf – something that is as significant and important in our family life as our observance of Christmas.  So what I share here are some of the traditions we have adopted as we have endeavored to do that, and therefore don’t necessarily include all of the practices observed in more liturgical churches during the season of Lent.   You will also see that we like to keep things fairly simple.  You aren’t going to see lots of cute crafts or events that are heavy on preparation.   I’m not a crafty-mama in the first place.   We’ve moved a lot in the second place (this year is the first time since 2009 that we have spent two consecutive Easters on the same continent!).  And in our missionary community, March/April tends to be one of the busiest times of the year for community events of all sorts – unfortunate but true.  So our traditions reflect that – simple things that I can still pull off without adding extra stress during a move or an otherwise busy season.   Just so you know where I’m coming from.

 

The mantle on Good Friday

On each Sunday of Lent, we use John Piper’s Lenten Lights devotional.  I like that this is designed sort of as the ‘reverse’ of an advent wreath – rather than lighting a new candle for each Sunday, one is extinguished.  The last candle is extinguished on Good Friday, and then one awakes to all of the candles re-lit to celebrate the resurrection on Easter Sunday.  To go along with each reading of the devotional, I searched for a painting that would illustrate the story.  (I wish I had a nice printable to share with you, but alas I don’t.  This is a useful site for searching for artwork with Biblical themes, however, if you wanted to put together something similar for your family.) 

 

During Holy Week, we use a set of plastic Easter eggs to retell the story of Passion Week.  Each egg is filled with a symbol that represents a part of the story.   You can buy sets of these commercially, but I made ours myself.  Currently, I have each day/symbol keyed to a reading from Catherine Vos’ The Child’s Story Bible, but am thinking that for next year I will key them to the actual Scripture passages.

 

 

Here is my list of symbols and readings from The Child’s Story Bible:

Palm Sunday

Egg #1: Palm Branch (in our case, it’s a foam palm tree sticker)

Reading: Ch. 41 “The King Comes” p.311

 

Monday

Egg #2: Cracker

Reading: Ch. 44 “In the Upper Room” p.314

 

Tuesday

Egg #3: Silver Coins (mine has 3 dimes in it)

Reading: Ch. 46 “The Kiss of Judas” p.317 (In this story Bible, it doesn’t actually mention the 30 pieces of silver that Judas was paid to betray Jesus, so I just add this in at an appropriate part in the story.)

 

Wednesday

Egg #4: Feathers

Reading: Ch. 47 “Why Peter Wept” p.318

 

Maundy Thursday

Egg #5: Whip (mine is made of some strings tied to a toothpick)

Egg #6: Purple Robe

Egg #7: Thorns

Reading: Ch. 50 “Carrying the Cross” p.322

 

Good Friday

Egg #8: Cross and Nails (my cross is made of twigs lashed together)

Egg #9: Vinegar and Sponge (I actually have a cotton ball in ours that I soak in a bit of vinegar so they can smell it)

Reading: Ch. 51 “The Sun Becomes Dark” p. 323

 

Saturday

Egg #10: Burial Cloth and Spices (a scrap of white fabric and some cloves)

Egg #11: Rock

Reading: Ch. 52 “The Stone is Rolled Away” p.325

 

Easter Sunday

Egg #12: Empty!

Reading: Ch.53 “Visitors to the Tomb” p. 326

 

 

On Easter Saturday, we usually dye Easter eggs.  We usually talk about how they can be a symbol of new life.   My 4-year-old asked me as I was preparing the dye this year: "So, first we dye the eggs, and then they come alive again?"  Well, not quite sweetheart....  At least something about the significance of this season is getting into her head, though. :)

 

Brown eggs come out really pretty when you dye them, don't they?  I love how they look.

 

This post is getting kind of long, so I’ll share our traditions that carry us into Easter Sunday and beyond next time.

 

DTK Chapter 5, Part 1: The Liturgical Year

Easter Sunday 2010, Australia

 

At the very end of chapter 4, Smith starts shifting gears a little bit towards where he is heading with chapter 5 – a detailed look at the various liturgical practices that are contained within a worship service – what truths they are meant to embody and how they can be a helpful counter-formation to the ‘secular’ liturgies of our modern culture.  Even though I still maintain that ideas, belief, and doctrine must inform our practices (rather than the other way around as Smith claims), I found this section really interesting and helpful to think about.    I come from a pretty generic non-denominational, evangelical background that has (unfortunately, in my opinion), shed quite a few of these liturgical practices in an effort to become more ‘relevant’ and ‘applicable’.  Smith points out that when we lose some of these traditional practices, we also lose some of the ‘counter-formational’ benefit to worship. Chapter 5 is a long and meaty chapter, and even with it broken up over 5 weeks, I still doubt I will comment on every practice that Smith mentions.  I do hope to be able to comment on those that I found most interesting and significant.   And I may also take some time to comment on some of the other practices that we have found helpful in our home even if they aren’t mentioned by Smith in this chapter.  This week’s section started off with a discussion of the liturgical year.

 

Advent Candles in France, 2012

 

Smith points out several ways that following the seasons of the church year can be an effective counter-formation to our secular culture:

• Celebrating Advent as a time of waiting, longing, and expectation is clearly a different orientation to the over-commercialization of the Season.
• Celebrating the seasons of the church year reminds us that our Messiah “does not float in some esoteric, ahistorical heaven, but [is one] who made a dent on the calendar – and will again.”
• Celebrating the seasons of the church year counters the idea of ‘presentism’ and living for the moment as it remembers back to the events of Christ in history and points forward to His return and coming kingdom.  (We also do this in Communion as we look back and remember what Christ has done and ‘proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes’.)  We become people of expectancy – we have the sense that this world isn’t all there is.  “Thus we are constituted as a people who live between times, remembering and hoping at the same time.”

 

Advent Candles in Cameroon, 2013

 

I don’t come from a church tradition that particularly values the seasons of the church year – maybe a nod to Advent, and Easter Sunday is a big deal of course.   In my family growing up, we pretty much tacked “Jesus” on to the rest of the hype of the season – sure, Christmas and Easter were about Jesus, but they were also about glitz and food and parties and candy and presents (and as a student heavily involved in the performing arts in high school, an over-the-top performance schedule).   We might have gone around with our nifty “Jesus is the Reason for the Season” buttons, but really, was He?  Not so much I don’t think – at least this is not the sense that I got as a child.    My husband comes from a similar background, and as we started our own family we both had the sense that something was missing.  I’d read about some of the meaningful liturgical traditions that some of the Catholic bloggers I like to follow practiced in their homes and began thinking about how we could make some of those ideas work within the context of our belief system.  I wanted that sense of beauty and rhythm and Christ-centered traditions in our home too.    We began to be intentional about bringing Jesus back as the centerpiece of our Christmas celebrations.  Several years later, we realized that Easter really gets glossed over while Christmas gets all the hype.  This seemed sort of disproportionate to us – Jesus’ death and resurrection is the focal point of the Christian faith.  If we don’t have those, we have nothing, you know?   Didn’t it deserve at least as much attention as Christmas did then?   So we began to be more intentional about observing the season of Lent as it led up to Easter.   That’s still a work in progress.  (Actually I had resolved back at the end of 2012 that 2013 would be the year of being more intentional about bringing these kinds of liturgical practices into our home…and then we moved to Africa. J  I am just now picking up the pieces.)  Both in Advent and in Lent we light candles every evening.  We do special family devotionals.  This year we’re hoping to extend our Lent meditations through the season of Easter.  We go fairly easy on the gifts, decorations, treats, and other activities – we’ve not gotten rid of them altogether, but we’ve tried to ensure that they don’t completely take over life in those seasons either.  Over the years, we have come to really love these simple family traditions – and I think that perhaps our children are starting to pick up on them too.  It didn’t even faze them that our Christmas packages from grandparents arrived 3 months late this year.  That’s not the focal point of the celebration for them.  These simple practices have helped keep our hearts focused on Christ rather than all the commercial hype of these holiday seasons and have given us something constant to hold onto in the midst of all of the moves our family has made over the last several years – this is the first time since 2009 we’ve set up our Advent and Lent-Easter candle displays in the same house (let alone same country!) two years in a row!  It’s a comforting reminder that the truth of the gospel doesn’t change even when the world all around us does.

 

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How we are Celebrating Advent This Year

There's been lots of discussions and posts online these days about how people are celebrating Advent.  I thought I'd throw mine into the mix too. =)

For several years now, we've been working towards making our celebrations of Christmas and Easter more Christ-focused.  We did an advent wreath for the first time the year Michelle was 14 months at Christmas time.  This year we don't have an actual wreath, but we still do have 5 candles, lighting one each week.  (Gotta make do with what you can find when you move as much as we do).  We've tried a variety of different devotionals, but until this year hadn't done anything that I particularly LIKED (at least, not well enough to repeat). 

(Side note on our 'display' - I got the cards on the easel online somewhere several years ago...sadly can't remember where now.  They are lovely, though, and small/lightweight enough to move around with us.  The nativity scene is from Peru - a gift from a friend, as I've never been there.  The cards on the wall were done by a Papua New Guinean artist.  Baby Jesus in a bilum - traditional, Papua New Guinean woven string bag, used for carrying anything, including babies!- makes me smile everytime I look at it.)

This year, we are using the symbols from Ann Voskamp's Jesse Tree devotional, but not the devotions that go with them.  The devotional thoughts would be over my kids' heads (and as lovely as they are I sometimes have a hard time with her writing style as well, for what it's worth).   We are simply reading the Scripture reference to go with each symbol - tracing God's plan of salvation from the creation, through the fall, through the promises made to Noah and Abraham and David, the prophecies, arriving finally at the birth of Christ. 

Typically, our family time each evening looks like this:
- We light the candle(s) - depending on the week.
- We use the previous symbols to recount the story so far.
- One child opens the day's envelope that has the new symbol inside (and sometimes a special activity card like 'family movie night' or 'bake cookies together'), and they look at it.  They try to guess what the next part of the story might be.
- We read the story from the Bible (I've written the reference on the back).  We revisit the symbol and explain how the story relates.  Dan or I might add a sentence or 2 about how it points us forward to Jesus (very, very briefly).
- We sing a hymn or carol together (I've chosen one for each week of advent).
And that's it.  Simple.  Sweet.  Meaningful.

I was kind of nervous about using "just the Scripture" and not having some kind of devotional guide to go along with it.  But in actuality, the simplicity has been beautiful.  I never planned that we'd retell the story from the beginning each night...that just sort of happened.  But I think maybe they are starting to see the big picture of redemptive history.  I didn't learn that the Old Testament really had much to do with the New until I was in college, so any glimmer of understanding on their part puts them way ahead of me. =)

And, really, should I have been so surprised that Scripture is enough?  I'm not trying to bash the use of devotionals or anything, but I don't think we've ever finished any of the 'family devotionals' we've tried.  Even if I like them at the beginning (and I'm picky - so much of what is out there for this age group is just silly), we usually end up being disenchanted with them once we get into them.  Scripture - or a well-written Bible storybook for the littlest ones - is enough.  It can speak for itself.