I love my kiddos. I want them to grow up to be compassionate, forgiving and wise adults. So like every parent, I’m always looking for opportunities to teach life lessons.

But as we all know, there are some lessons you just can’t plan for. Some are just divinely given…and sometimes they come from our kids.

Laynie woke up early this morning. I was feeding Gideon when she came into his room.

She was excited about hunting Easter eggs at Mimi’s house later in the day. That’s when it hit me- I had not put together our own Easter egg hunt. I was so unprepared and worried that Laynie would be disappointed.

Thankfully Laynie didn’t ask about our hunt; so after I finished feeding Gideon, I woke Kevin up and had him distract Laynie while I scrambled to throw something together. I had about 15 eggs, some change and half a bag of Cadbury Mini Eggs. So I quickly filled each egg with coins or candy and slipped out the door to hide the eggs.

When I came back in, I grabbed our Bible. Kevin and I read (more like paraphrased) through Luke 24; and then we talked with Laynie about why we celebrate Easter and who really hides the eggs.

Needless to say, everything turned out great even though I was unprepared. When Laynie came back in to open her eggs, she was so excited about the coins that she asked me to get her Save/Spend/Give jars down so she could put away her money. So of course, I thought I’d use this opportunity to teach her a mini lesson about money.

But the real lesson was about to be taught by her. Half way through opening her eggs, she opened an empty one. Apparently in the midst of rushing to stuff the eggs, I had forgotten to fill one of them. But instead of disappointment about the egg being empty, Laynie’s face was filled with excitement.

“This one represents the empty tomb!! This one means that Jesus is alive and in Heaven! We talked about this last night at church!!”

MY. HEART. MELTED!!  (Thank you Lakepointe-FW Children’s Ministry!!)

At that moment I realized my mini lesson about money was so insignificant when compared to what God wanted to teach my little girl… and me!

This was such a cool opportunity to keep the true meaning of Easter going. I had heard of resurrection eggs before but I’m a poor planner and forgot all about them this year.

I called my mom before we drove to her house and made sure she left one egg empty as well. Laynie was just as excited to find another resurrection egg. And she was just as excited to tell everyone why it was empty.

Whether you perfectly planned it or not, I hope your Easter was all about Him.