Next Wednesday is Halloween when many families may or may not be Trick or Treating. Like many of you, before coming to RMI our family went through so many spiritual struggles when having to deal with Halloween. Most families simply follow what their local church shows them is the “right” way to deal with this pagan holiday. But it wasn’t until I read something Erin wrote years ago that helped to settle this in my own heart, which now is even more beneficial since I have married children and grandchildren.
It has also removed the judgmental spirit that none of us should have, and again, is now more needed so that no matter what each of my grown children decides for their family, whatever they “choose” to do with their own children (my grandchildren) I am more than okay with it. What a sense of freedom and quietness this has brought to my soul while also not burdening these young families more than they already are.
What Erin shared is that like a lot of us, when her children were very young they participated in dressing up and “trick or treating” until they joined a church where they were “celebrating” the church’s Fall Festival or something else they chose to call it. Sometimes they dressed up— but were encouraged to wear nothing that would be scary for a costume.
Yet, much like Christmas and Santa Claus, when children are very young they have no understanding of what’s going on, let alone the meaning behind it. So depending on what the Lord leads you to do with your own children, or what your EH says he wants to do, or what your grown children want to do with their children, as wise women we need to remain peaceful and agreeable. This peaceful and agreeable spirit is the way we always need to respond to our grown children, as well and especially with the unbeliever or even other believers.
What is so lovely is the verse Erin used that helped to set me free and the principle that can be used for so many purposes. Romans 14:14 “I know and am convinced in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself; but to him who thinks anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean.” If you want to know the real truth about judging and things that we are worried are unclean or wrong, I’d urge you to read Romans 14:10-25 in the 3 Bible versions I have linked them to (the same versions Erin often links her Living Lessons to).
What I’ve found as I’ve gotten older and more spiritually mature, by the grace of God, is that the more I can move my heart away from the law and focus more on His grace brought on by my relationship with Him as my HH, the more I am unable and unwilling to judge others by laws or moral codes—so I am able to share HIS love with them instead.
It’s due to this principle that I am witnessing so many of the people around me wanting to know and are now experiencing my Savior and my Hero. Thank you for my Darling HH!
~ Michele