Wednesday, February 9, 2011

A Quick Frame. . .

Just under a year ago, I attended a "Take It Home" event at our church. It was pretty much a class for parents or parents and children to teach us ways to use the things we learn at church in your home (making a connection between church and home). The particular one I attended was for a pre-school aged group. It was about blessings and our children. One part that stood out to me was a story (don't quote me on this one, I'm just telling it as I remember it) about a man/parent who had a bible verse in his child's room and would pray this verse over his child while sleeping as she grew up. When his child grew older, she was able to repeat this verse in a particular situation when wisdom was needed--and knew what her dad had done all these years. That story left me thinking about the power of praying Bible verses over my children--and particularly praying blessings over them.

At this class, some Bible verse suggestions were given to us, as well as some "posters" of some of these Bible blessings. Some parents shared about how they already had verse hanging up as a result of taking this little class at an earlier time and what it meant to them. To be honest, I didn't jump on the bandwagon right away and mount these posters that very same day, but gave the whole idea some thought. I thought about how I currently pray for my children and if/how I would change the way I pray for my children after hearing what I did that day. I thought about scripture verses related to prayer and blessings and raising children in the Lord. I thought about the verses printed on the posters and what God had said to His people in the past and was He was saying to me and my children through those verses now.

Eventually my husband and I did choose a verse for each of our children from the suggestions given. One thing we did find was how the things we would pray for our children turned up in these verses--and it was {easy} to "assign" a verse to hang in each of their rooms.

It is interesting (for a lack of a better word at the moment to capture how I ponder this) to me now, already, that my oldest often wants to read his verse as his night time prayer or reminds me to pray the verse for him. I got a glimpse of the passion the story-teller mentioned above had in sharing his idea with others--a glimpse of a yearning to share in God's blessing, whether we fully comprehend it or not. And a glimpse of how we have a need to have conversations with our Father, but also for others to have conversations with this same Father on our behalf. IT also reminded me that sometimes when we pray we just don't know the right words to say. . .but that God does, and He gave us the words we need in His Word.

Phew--And this was just gonna be a "look-at-the-short-little-project-I-made" kind of post!

So, here is that part! Here is the latest one I made. Like I said, I didn't jump on this project right away. But a few weeks ago, when my husband started wrecking--I mean, remodelling, if you can call it that at this point--our house, I needed something to do that felt like I was creating something nice--not a mess! So, I decided to mount the verse we had chosen for our youngest child.

Here is how this project worked for me. . .go through box of old frames. Reject all of them. Not even a coat of paint would fix any of them at this point. Go through junk room. Find old picture that hung in a baby room once upon a time. Decide that frame could be used but picture had to go. Realize frame is too big for my trusty scrapbook paper. . .think a little. . .pause for a "Candyland" break with the kids (sheer excitement!!!). . .think some more. . . Realize that I can use fabric. Search remnant fabric box. Choose one that will match room colors and fame. Get to work.
My stuff
Covering the frame. I just covered it in a similar way that I would wrap a present. Easy-peasy.
Then I mounted the "poster" of the verse to the front side, added a few star embellishments, and there you have it. Easy project. Hardly worth blogging about. But shows you how art-ish-y you can look even in you are not! And it shows you what you can accomplish in a whole 15 minutes! And it made me feel like my home was a {teensy} but prettier and nicer than our kitchen looks right now. :)
By the wall and bed cover of my youngster's bed. (Choosing exactly where to hang it might take a while still--but it is done and ready to be hung!)
Here are the ones I have in the rooms of my other kiddos:


FYI: Other verse selections we were given at this class in poster form included Ephesians 3: 17-19 and Galatians 2:20.