Asking and Receiving

"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you." 
(Matthew 7:7)

For today's advent calendar activity we focused on the promise that Jesus gives to those that seek God: that He will be found.  The word that sticks out for me in this verse is the word "door".  Every day I seem to have a door shut in my face by one or more of my children - not in the stroppy teenager sense, but in the playful 'peekaboo' sense.  It's a game that Wugs and Dooey play among themselves as well, so I thought they would enjoy playing with a door - knocking on it, hiding behind it or opening it to surprise somebody.

Last month when we were unpacking, I held on to some moving boxes anticipating that they would come in handy for a craft or activity.  I used a long, thin box to make the play door and painted the front and top in dark brown paint.  As the box itself would be flimsy if just left standing alone, I wedged it in between two cabinets, which I pulled out from the wall to create a hidden space behind the door.  The idea was for the play door itself to be bland, but when opened it would lead to a multi-sensory experience of sparkly tinsel, mood lights, draping gold voiles, stars and images of the nativity.

What we used:

Cardboard box, long and thin

Dark brown paint

Cotton reels (for door knobs)

Tinsel

LED mood lights

Gold voile

Star decoration

Images of the nativity

The boys loved the door more than I expected.  Unfortunately they yanked on it so hard that the door knobs fell off, but the door was easy to open without this feature. We've decided to keep it assembled so they can continue to enjoy over the next few days.

Making a Prayer Box

"For where two or three have gathered together in My name, I am there in their midst" 

(Matthew 18:20)

This evening we reflected on God being with us through prayer.  Wugs and I have prayed together for as long as I can remember and now both boys shout out a loud "Amen!" when I've finished.  With our big move to the UK, there have been so many things to pray about (a car, a house, a job, a preschool for Wugs, sickness, sleeplessness and worry) that sometimes it feels like a shopping list that I reel off each night.  I thought it would be interesting and faith-building to record our prayers so we can look back on this time and see how God has been guiding us.

A while ago, I read about a Christian family that introduced a "prayer box" and each child would write a need and place it in the box for everybody to pray about.  With a 3 year old and an 18 month old, this works a bit differently as neither of my boys can write, but I thought it was time to create something special around prayer.  Tonight I wrote down two specific areas that we will be praying about over the next couple of weeks and asked Wugs and Dooey to place them in the box.  Then, over the course of a month or a year we can review and give thanks.