How is it that my children can compete over Lent? Yet, somehow they manage.
Each year we prepare a "crown of thorns" as part of our Lenten preparation for Easter. We make a salt-flour crown (recipe below) and stick with toothpicks to represent the thorns on the crown the Roman soldiers shoved on Jesus' head as they tortured Him. Each year we marvel again at how Jesus could have endured the real thorns pressing into His head. More than any other activity, I think this brings Jesus' sacrifice to clarity for our children.
Each day--every time a child deliberately goes out of their way to serve someone else, to show them Jesus' love, they get to remove a thorn. The goal: remove all the thorns by Easter. In this way we intentionally focus on sharing the love we received as a result of Jesus' death and resurrection. It seemed like such a good idea.
Yet, two days in--our children are vying for who gets to serve whom--not so much focusing on sharing God's love as on gaining bragging rights over who has the most thorns. How is it that an activity designed to draw us closer to God, to make us more like Him, has us competing? The very reason He died.
Jesus died because we so naturally think of ourselves rather than Him. We so naturally focus on ourselves rather than Him. We so naturally want top billing rather than give Him top billing. He died to save us from this.
So, it turns out the crown of thorns really does do its job. Each time the children focus on getting a thorn for their collection instead of passing the love God has given them, we have the opportunity to revisit the cross. We talk about how we need God's saving grace to get through each moment of the day. How we need His grace to save us from focusing on ourselves. How we need His grace even to engage in celebrating Him.
Fortunately, Lent lasts a while. Though the competition for thorns has our children trying to outdo each other for highest count, we have the time to let the crown work in us to retrain our focus. We have lots of days to focus our focus on Jesus and others.
Recipe for Crown of Thorns:4 cups flour1 cup salt2 cups water.
Mix into clay-like mixture. Divide into three balls and roll each into a long strand. Braid the strands, then form into a circle. Fill the crown with toothpicks. Bake at 350 degrees for an hour.

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