The best family night ever

First of all thanks to God for listening to and answering prayers. Second thanks to Heritage Builders from Focus on the Family for the ideas. Tonight was a great family night. The best ever. All others have been close to disaster, but this one was amazing.

We talked about the fact that we deserve punishment for sin and how Jesus took our punishment for us...and some of them actually understood. The last activity was me acting as a judge and each child being convicted of something they had done in the last two days and having their consequence read to all (a little intense, but had to get the affect of judgement day). They all recognized their guilt and were upset with their punishments, but knew they had to be done. Then I threw in the last one, that no one was able to go to the pool next time (side note, they had all gone today, but I stayed home working on family night stuff). That got them all riled up, but at that point I took off my judicial robe (bathrobe) and said, "But I love you all so much that I will do your punishments for you. In fact for those of you who have to write out verses (15 or 25 times), I've already written them." For the children that had to pay for things, I pulled money out of my wallet and I even stayed in the corner for Claudia. We had a great discussion about their feelings of guilt, and how I didn't deserve to do the punishments, but how grateful they were for my sacrifice. Maria caught onto the fact that this is what Jesus did for us. Praise Jesus for this opportunity to present the truth of what we deserve but He took upon himself. Keep praying for future family nights, and for daily teachable moments.