Sunday Scripture Sharing - Pumpkin Family Devotional

Today's Topic is:

Having a joyful heart and a cheerful face!

Activity
Together with your children make faces for your pumpkins. Either carve them, or if your kids are too young for knives, or the mess scares you, use stickers to create different kinds of faces (you can do two faces per pumpkin, one on front, one on back).
Scripture

Proverbs 15:13a, "A joyful heart makes a cheerful face"

Discussion
Ask your kids what kind of faces the pumpkins have -- scary, silly, happy, mad? Ask them to demonstrate the different facial expressions themselves. Then ask them what kind of face they like to see other people make at them. Chances are they'll answer "happy". Let the kids know that having a "happy" or "cheerful" face is a gift, a blessing, to everyone who sees it. Read the Bible verse, Prov. 15:13a. Then talk about what makes a heart joyful. My son answered things like birthdays, or getting toys that he really wants. But, I challenged him with how he could be joyful even if he didn't get a toy he wanted.

Prayer
Dear God, help us to have joyful hearts and cheerful faces. Amen.