MEAL MIX-UP

Let your child know you need their help preparing a meal. Tell them you’ll call out the ingredients, and they can help by grabbing them. After you name a few relevant ingredients for your recipe, start calling out irrelevant ingredients. Examples include:

• Crayons
• Paper clips
• Paper towels
• Dish soap

Once you’ve assembled all the ingredients, ask your child what they think of all the items on your counter. They will either laugh or want to correct you.

Say: Do you think these ingredients make a good meal? Why shouldn’t we add them?

Say: I agree with you. We can’t make a meal with all these ridiculous ingredients. It’s impossible. But you know what? Jesus can do that with our lives.

He can take the challenges, the hurt and the pain we’ve gone through and turn it into something beautiful — something better than we could have ever imagined for ourselves. This doesn’t mean that painful moments are good. God can make something lovely out of anything! And he does not work only to make us happy, but to fulfill His beautiful purposes in and through us.

Share the hope of God’s Word and pray together with your child.