Tuesday’s Tip for Mom is a blog carnival hosted at Raising Olives to allow moms to share what they have learned along the path of motherhood. Join us every Tuesday as we learn and share tips and ideas for spending time with, encouraging, training or relating to our children.
My husband is actually the creator of this idea. It started with the realization that we wanted our family prayer time to include all members of our extended families, but we were too disorganized to make it happen. So Randy came up with the idea of a Prayer Jar.
We made a list of every family member we wanted to remember in prayer, and cut the names apart. All names went into a jar. Each night, we all pick one name from the jar and pray for them. Since Nathan, the baby, doesn't say prayers yet, we cover 5 people each night. In one week, we pray for 35 different people! The kids LOVE it! It's a fun surprise to see who we'll get to pray for.
It really stretches the kids when they draw the name of, say, an uncle or grandparent they don't normally "play" with. Typically, they would want to pick their favorite cousins each time, so it helps them to think of the needs of ALL family members. We try to give them gentle suggestions based on the needs of their particular person.
We've begun adding others to the jar, such as our Pastor, family friends, our nation and President. It has been a real blessing to our family and I'm sure it's a blessing to each person in that jar, too!
A bonus: Baby Nathan has started mimicking prayers. He closes his eyes and does his best "jibberish" prayer. He likes to do what Big Brother Nicholas does. : )
Since everything turns into a craft at our house, the jar is decorated with scrapbook paper and ribbon to match my living room decor.
Labels: Tuesday's Tip for Moms
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