The Peace Place

Posted by Cindy on January 8, 2008

A peace place.  A place for my children (or myself) to go when we are not being peaceful.  A time-out of sorts, but focused on God and His desires for us.  A quiet and comfortable place for us to reflect on why we haven’t been peaceful and to ask forgiveness.  A place to rid ourselves of frustration, focus on the Word and work through forgiveness towards the person or people who have offended us.

In this place, you’ll find a Bible, a peace notebook, paper, pens and a servant jar.  The peace notebook includes everything included on Holy Experience’s post about making a peace place (above).  As the kids read through the pages in the notebook, my prayer is that their hearts begin to soften.  That they grow closer to the Lord and learn to walk in His ways more readily.  That they learn how to better handle the frustrations of life (especially life with brothers and sisters.)

The servant jar.  When one of my children gets angry and offends someone else in the house with ugly words or ugly actions, not only do they get to spend a little time in the Peace Place, but they get to choose a slip of paper from the servant jar.  On the little slips are jobs that person can do to serve the person they’ve offended.  What better way to ask forgiveness of someone than to serve them.

We’ve only just begun our Peace Place, but I’m praying that God will reveal Himself to us when we visit.  I’m praying that our walk will grow closer to His as we learn better to ask forgiveness and to forgive others.  I’m praying that, eventually, we won’t need the Peace Place anymore because our hearts will have turned towards Him in such a way that our actions and reactions are generally peaceful.  Ah, peace.

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.”  Matthew 5:9

(The original idea for our peace place and servant jar came from a mixture of posts on the same topic from A Holy Experience and Preschoolers and Peace.  Love those ladies!)

Miller Stories

Posted by Cindy on June 6, 2007

My children pulled all the Miller’s books out again the other day.  I can’t tell you how much we’ve enjoyed these books!

From the time they were preschoolers and we started reading Storytime With the Millers, my children have intently listened to and learned from the stories.  I think they’re so good, in fact, that they were read during devotion time usually.

Even though the books come from a very conservative Amish-Mennonite perspective, I found them to be very useful in teaching topics like trusting God, manners, friendship, obedience, respect, forgiveness, self-sacrifice and much, much more!  Each story centers around a Bible verse and that verse is used at some point within the story.  Many of the stories are full of some excitement, too.  That helps to keep my son’s attention!

Choosing a favorite is hard, but I would probably choose Missionary Stories with the Millers as my personal favorite.  This book is just full of the true adventure stories of actual missionaries.  Some I had heard of, some I  hadn’t.  I have read other reviews that said the stories in this book were a little too much for their younger children, but mine had no problems it.  Be warned, though, that the real stories of missionaries aren’t always smily, joyful stories.  But in each, God’s faithfulness and care shine through!!